I'm a fan of many comedians from British TV and was very surprised and happy to discover that Dara O'Briain was making an appearance at the Kina Teatern in Stockholm. At the end of his show he hinted that several other British (Okay I know he's Irish) comedians have heard on the grapevine that Swedes appreciate and can understand English stand up comedy. Even if, as the boyfriend pointed out, the crowd goes silent in concentration when Dara's Irish accent comes booming to the back. This means further yay for me as I can expect more comedy in the future.
At any rate, many of the highlights of Dara's show stemmed from the fact that he enjoys audience participation and many of the replies from Swedes had him quite baffled. Here is my top list:
1. Dara has a sketch in which he asks the audience "have you ever saved a life". Often people reply "yes I gave the Heimlich manoeuvre". This happened in Sweden, too. But when Dara asked "How did you know how to do this?" to a 15 year old, she replied "we learn it at school" ! Well, that's the first time he'd heard that.
2. The front row were asked what their jobs were. 50% of the front row were Engineers. He asked a young person at the front what they were studying. It was Engineering.
3. Dara needed to know the size of a house to set up a joke. He was expecting a normal English answer like "It's a 2 bed semi" or "It's just a shoebox studio". Instead he got an incredibly precise "It is 27 square metres", a standard Swedish response. Of course he had no idea how big or small that is, because nobody measures their houses in the UK.
4. A lady in the front row was a property developer. "How many student tenants do you manage in your four properties" Dara asked. "400" was the reply. "Bloody hell do they live in slums with 100 in each little house!?" Joked Dara "I bet you deny them all the essentials, plumbing, heat, a sauna". "No, they have a sauna" came the reply. Dara was using a stereotype and certainly wasn't expecting that!
5. One of Dara's parenting jokes centred around him being one of the only men in an antenatal class and feeling ostracised by the women in the group. This didn't get much reaction, since most Swedish men are involved with child rearing most of the time.
6. "What would you shout at a burglar behind a door?" Dara asked the audience. Among other things came "Make a baby noise because nobody wants to hurt a baby!" To which Dara shouted "What kind of a fucking safe country is this, where a baby deters criminals?"
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