Off the Hook

Moran ambles across the stage looking rumpled and thoroughly put out, offering an unvarnished four-stage model of human existence: child, failure, old, and dead. Having quit smoking, he spends part of the evening detailing how he redirected that nervous energy into eating alarming quantities of cheese while pretending to care about its provenance.

Filmed at the Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith during May 2015, the performance marked his return to British theaters after four years away. Moran had spent the preceding years acting in John Michael McDonagh’s Calvary and taking his live set to unusual tour stops across Eastern Europe, including Moscow, Kyiv, and Kazakhstan.

Projections of his own scratchy ink drawings hang overhead while he wanders between complaints about modern domesticity and technology. He characterizes Apple stores as modern cathedrals where customers confess to bearded employees, dismisses television baking competitions as a collective refusal to think about mortality, and sketches British politicians of the era as absurd biological accidents.

Contemporary reviews praised the rhythm of the performance, pointing out that Moran was most effective when directing the irritation at himself, particularly the slow physical indignities of middle age.