Grainne Maguire – Original Review
Note: This review is from 2008
Review by Steve Bennett
Relative newcomer Grainne Maguire hails from Navan, the Irish town that has already produced Tommy Tiernan and Dylan Moran – but she’s her work cut out to reach their level.She is an engaging and natural performer with has deep reserves of excitable energy. But as she gushily natters away nineteen-to-the-dozen, she often finds the gags elusive.
She starts weakly with a bit about her first name, which isn’t really of interest to anyone but herself, before moving on to more fertile ground .
There are some nice touches in her routine – from her never-impressed dad, or the campness of Catholicism – yet these isolated moments don’t quite clump together into something solidly funny.
She’s also dabbling in the fashionable area of whimsical lo-fi comedy, with similarly mixed results. An enjoyable bizarre piece about robins and migrating birds provides a hearty laugh when she snaps out of it and back to reality, but the home-made cartoons on her flip chart were less reliable.
She’s a sweet enough stage presence, but has not yet moulded her abilities into a reliable set.
Review date: 24 Jul 2008
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
