As the title dictates, Tim McGarry’s solo show at the Grand Opera House embodies a lesson structure, taking the audience on a journey through Ireland’s five thousand year history of invasion, war and famine with McGarry at the top of the class acting as teacher.
The instant McGarry walks on stage, Guinness in hand, claiming that he is “now a better dancer than Michael Jackson”, before a pathetic moonwalk, it is clear that this show would be inundated with good old Norn Iron sarcasm and that McGarry wouldn’t be unwilling to let anything, or anyone involved in the past five thousand years, off the hook.
He assures us he wants to teach us about Irish history as there are some people who know absolutely nothing about it. He calls these people “Protestants”. It is this controversial comedic style that informs the entire act and is what characterises McGarry’s history lesson as new, distinctive and uniquely funny. His brazen approach to Irish history is refreshing following years when people were cautious about saying practically anything to strangers, fearful of its potential to offend. McGarry doesn’t seem to hold any such qualms-in fact, if the show doesn’t offend a large portion of the audience maybe it didn’t fulfill its purpose. Yes, be offended but then laugh.
The history lesson does not neglect QUB students in Ireland’s historical past, although perhaps not for the reasons they would hope. Recalling the Saint Patrick Day riots, he comments how the “nationalist officers were terrified as they witnessed students smash windows and set cars alight, while the old-hand RUC officers looked on with a sense of nostalgia”.
The show transforms the most troublesome times into comedy genius. The Famine, for instance, he tells his Protestant friends, was “a Trocaire fast that got out of hand”, and the 1916 Easter Rising was “caused by Cadbury reducing the size of creme eggs”. The act is not without moral undertones however. Mocking masked paramilitaries, McGarry comments, “you’re not scary, you’re a wanker in a mask”. Tim McGarry’s History Lesson mirrors the progress in Northern Ireland, everyone can laugh at this show (if you’re not Peter Robinson) and find humour in our history. Tim McGarry’s History Lesson centers around satirizing sectarianism, and he makes no apologies for it, commenting; “Sectarianism – all the fun of racism with only a fraction of the guilt.”
30th November: Theatre at the Mill, Newtonabbey. 7.45pm.
29th December: Bardic Theatre, Donaghmore. 8.00pm.
30th December: Island Arts Centre, Lisburn.8.00pm
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