Oxford Comedy Festival is in full swing, and I went to see two acts last Friday night at Trinity College Bar to join in on the fun. Performing that evening were Caitriona Dowden, with her show Caitriona Dowden is Holier Than Thou, and Micky Overman with hers, Hold On.
First up, Dowden performed what was ostensibly a high-concept set about her plans to achieve Catholic Sainthood. To her credit, she attended Catholic school growing up and has already gathered a crowd of adoring believers (aka the audience) but still, being a queer atheist might prove to be a roadblock.
Dowden was the recipient of Chortle’s best student comic award in 2021, and after seeing her perform, it’s easy to see why, beyond her talent for comedy. She is the embodiment of the Oxford Student as a character - I guarantee if you’ve lived here for more than a couple of years and spent time with any twentysomethings, you’ll easily recognise the portrait she conjures. The fiercely smart kid turned bewildered and exasperated adult. A perpetual student whose degrees have dubious transferability into the job market. An anarchist-on-paper who's too introverted for frontline activism but will happily make spreadsheets for the revolution. There’s a Sally Rooney-eque flatness and looking askance to her material and delivery. Her hour covers the absurd labors of young adulthood in the 21st century, the gaslighting and enforced positivity of retail work, how organized fun is superior to the spontaneous kin and her dislike of photos of acquaintances’ babies and pets.
She gives off the energy of your mom’s favorite of your childhood friends, and it felt at times like we were now the ones she was dazzling with her politeness. The themes gathered around religion, student life, capitalism and queerness, but there wasn’t a sense of a storyline particularly. It felt like a succession of five and ten minute routines stitched together (as in, more so than all comedy shows do), and the saintly thing was perhaps simply a framing device. I think this would have felt more cohesive had Dowden presented herself as a more pungent character.
She has the underlying likability to pull off a bit more smug, spiky and deliberately out-of-step with the audience, and this would help keep the show from drifting into mildness.
Dowden herself highlights that her delivery is deadpan, her energy is intentionally low, and there is a very unassuming quality to the whole show. At the beginning, she says she likes to do some crowdwork to get the audience warmed up, greets a woman in the front row, and then says ‘Great, that should do it’.
It was a great way of setting the tone of deliberate awkwardness, but I wish the piece had leaned into making the audience squirm more as it went along. Most of the anecdotes related back to her own awkwardness or alienation, and I wanted her delivery throughout to be a bit more in line with that.
Nevertheless, it was an entertaining hour from a distinctive, witty comedian who has carved out a clear character and will no doubt continue to make waves in Edinburgh next month.
Next up, Micky Overman brought a zippy exasperation and relentless cheer. While both were deeply entertaining, the two comedians perhaps couldn’t have had more different energy if they tried.
While many (perhaps most?) people fear change, Overman lets us know she dives headfirst into it, as if the adage ‘anything is tolerable so long as it’s temporary’ is her life motto. The challenge she struggles with now is the absence of one: she’s finally achieving her dreams, now what?
The jokes circled around the themes of commitment: to a job, a relationship, learning a language, having children, whether-or-not to get married. While Hold On was not billed as a high-concept show, it had something of an emotional arc and many brilliant tie-ins back to itself. It reminded me of Nathan D’Arcy’s excellent show last year, Present/Tense, in that it had this indie dramedy poignancy. Portrait of the comedian as an extremely likable screw-up fumbling towards a meaningful adulthood.
Overman has a sparkling energy and Amy Poehler-eque delivery, made funnier by her Dutch accent, which sounds loose, almost American, until she emphasizes something, at which point it becomes ultra-precise and patrician.
It might be kind of a hard sell as there’s no immediate hook in the show’s description, but anyone who sees it will be won over by its idiotic puns and whimsy, goofy voices delivered with a profound sincerity. One metaphor comparing anxiety to a rat problem was particularly hilarious.
The shows pair nicely together as snapshots of ‘Now What?’ angst, experienced at two different points in life. While Dowden’s show is in part about the dystopian aimlessness of Gen-Z life in one’s mid-twenties, Overman’s captures this sort of elder millennial ennui.
After such a fun night, I’m excited to see more of what the comedy festival has to offer as it continues.