Token Cis review: Some shakily constructed jokes but this comedy material is gold

 

Alive to empty symbols of effort, the main parody by this comedy troupe is to give stage time to guest cisgender comics as if they're doing them a favour. Photo: Shubhangi Karmakar

Project Arts Centre - Upstairs, Dublin Fringe Festival

★ ★ ★ 

“I’m not surprised an audience turned up. Us queers are good at withstanding viruses with little help from the government,” says Allie O’Rourke, the blistering MC of Token Cis. This sharp comedy show - a blend of five different stand-up routines - delivers a number of eloquent takedowns of discriminatory establishments, as if breathing new life into the theory that if comedy doesn’t contain displaced anger, it won’t be funny. 

Sparked by a disagreement with a comedy producer who said there aren’t enough queer comics to warrant a monthly comedy night, Token Straight is a collective featuring comedians Allie O’Rourke, Felix O’Connor, MJ Stokes and Neil Farrell. Alive to empty symbols of effort, the main parody in their comedy is to give stage time to straight comics as if they are doing them a favour. In Token Cis the idea is evolved further to give cisgender guests a platform, allowing the show to be inclusive to other emerging queer comics without losing its subversive edge. 

This is a breath of fresh air, especially when the usual comedy line-up at the Dublin Fringe Festival doesn’t look possible anymore. In 2017 four performers including Conor O’Toole accused Al Porter of sexual misconduct. This year Davey Reilly admitted to claims of emotional abuse, the improv-comedy troupe Dreamgun announced the removal of a member following stories of inappropriate behaviour, and Ruth Hunter quit being a comedian due to the toxicity of the industry. 

Token Cis feels like a fresh slate, an exciting introduction to bright new comics whose anger is justified, their material original, if the construction of some jokes a little bit shaky. There’s a point when the charming Felix O’Connor, vibrating with adrenaline, compares a friend’s visit to the film Get Out as they stumble into Felix’s weird, tight-lipped household, mistaking old photos of him for a murdered family member. It’s a skit rich with new ideas, revealing silly awkwardness around transitions and easily mistaken identities, but it lacks a capper to bring the skit to a close. 

There are stretched experiments with callbacks, and some one-liners that don’t quite work. When Allie O’Rourke searches through the irony of having well-endowed male genitalia that she’d rather reconstruct into female genitalia, it seems like an arch attempt to transform the “dick joke,” but alas that symbol of male-dominated comedy is made of harder stuff. Other inventive one-liners do find release, such as O'Rourke’s hilarious anecdote about being misgendered by a camogie coach, and the edgy wit MJ Stokes’s lament of being endlessly compared to Sue Perkins. Elsewhere, the surrealist Neil Farrell weaves in comic poetry and music, exploring the exhausting illogic of alt-right trolls with enough vim to bring the show to a close. 

Saying that the funniest routine belongs to the token cisgender comic Ian Lynam - a neurodiverse humourist, with an excellent sight gag about the myth that bleach cures autism - may invite controversy. But the touching spirit of this show is that comedy can be a team effort. 

Run ends September 6th.

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