Review: Cork comedian wows Live at the Marquee crowd

There was a palpable sense of excitement at Live at the Marquee on Friday when Chris Kent made his debut headline appearance there.

While there have been a few Cork musicians to have had that honour, the Knocknaheeny born and bred entertainer is the first Cork comedian (no offence meant to Des Bishop!) to take on the 4,000 capacity venue.

While Cork’s social media was abuzz about the gig, the irony is that Chris’ show was about getting off social media, the internet and the phone in general.

Titled Offline, it is based on an eight-week period where Chris tried to give up his smartphone and all other internet devices all together, reverting to maps and asking for directions, and paying his bills at the bank.

However, it isn’t really a show about not having a phone, but rather what happened in the absence of having the internet at hand, how it led to reconnecting with different people in a more personal way, seeing if taking away a lot of modern convenience increases or decreases stress, and finding more creative times in your day rather than living in an “always on” world.

Like all the great comics, Chris doesn’t consider the theme of a show as a constraint to his humour but rather as a foundation to build and riff on, as he told the audience how his experiment had an effect on his interactions with his friends, parents, partner and children.

There was a lovely photo of his children on the Live at the Marquee stage before the doors opened, shared on his Instagram page the following morning, a memory they will never forget.

The sold-out show had Cornelius Patrick O’Sullivan as the opening act, and he whipped the crowd into a great mood for the night. With his astute but relatable comedy, he is equally adept at leaning into somewhat surreal ideas as well as delivering more observational material.

Chris peppered some audience interaction throughout his set, with one person in the crowd making the classic error of trying to be the funny one, which Chris was able to make great light of… and even went so far as using the screen at the side of the stage to “blow his cover”.

This performance of his Offline show cemented Kent’s place at the very top table of his generation of Irish comics, and realistically, we will surely be seeing his return to Live at the Marquee over the years.

The standing ovation he received at the end of the show was all the market research the promoters would ever need!