Nasty Character
YouTube · 2025 · 55 min
Frantic, dirty stand-up from an unrepentant Irish expat.
Mike Rice embraces the role of the rotten, devious villain. He uses his hour to argue that sneaky, nasty Irish men are having a cultural moment, drawing a straight line from actor Barry Keoghan’s cinematic exploits to his own aggressive, twitchy stage presence. There are no attempts to beg for the audience’s sympathy or soften the edges of his persona. Instead, he treats the crowd at Blackfriars in Glasgow like a collection of co-conspirators in a dirty, low-stakes heist.
Filmed in the basement of the Glasgow venue, the hour acts as the culmination of the Kilkenny native’s transition from a well-behaved Catholic farm boy to a cynical London expat. He spent much of the preceding year building a massive online audience through his podcast with Vittorio Angelone, and this special leans into that same conversational, boundary-pushing energy. Rice spends considerable time painting bleak, funny portraits of Irish life, from a miserable landlord he tries to out-gloom to depressing childhood family holidays in Wexford where the primary activity was searching for washed-up bodies on the rain-battered beach.
He moves with a frantic, jerky physicality that keeps the small room on edge, matching his delivery to the erratic pace of his thoughts. Bizarre swings at pop culture figures like Beyonce and Andrew Tate keep the energy unpredictable, but the show is at its strongest when he looks directly at the front row to explain exactly why they look untrustworthy.
The set list
-
Barry Keoghan improvising the graveyard scene in Saltburn
Argues that Keoghan's grave-plowing proved Irish men are 'men of the soil' and heralded an Indian summer for nasty, horny little men.
-
Growing up on a Kilkenny farm with a deeply miserable father
Contrasts his father routinely calling him useless with the sudden, disorienting emotional high of being called the 'best boy in Ireland'.
-
Brother's Korean partner sketches a family portrait
Recounts how the artist could only draw Asian eyes, causing his suspicious father to perceive the drawing as a hostile scheme to colonize the farm.
-
Childhood family holidays to Wexford
Describes driving a mere 45 minutes to a bleak seaside holiday, prompting him to start smoking at age nine out of sheer despair.
-
Impression of an Irish landlord
Portrays his landlord delivering an absolute masterclass in Irish misery as Rice tries desperately to out-misery him.
How it plays
- Tone
- Risqué, bawdy, close-to-the-bone, irreverent, and dirty.
- On stage
- Self-identified unrepentant 'nasty little man' and 'rotten little divvil'; an unfiltered, muck-loving troglodyte raconteur with no interest in conceits or gimmicks.
- Pace
- Physical and kinetic, with jerky swiveling movements between sections of the crowd, capable of bellowing unamplified to the back of the room.
- About
- Nasty men having an Indian summer, Barry Keoghan and Saltburn, Rural Irish farm upbringing, Generational Irish misery, Dismal childhood holidays in Wexford, Life as an Irish expat in England
What the critics said
Praised as top-tier, dirty, hysterical club comedy anchored by Rice's physical stage performance, razor-sharp crowd interactions, and natural storytelling ability.
In the room: Raucous, participatory club atmosphere where the room chants insults and happily endures relentless ribbing.
Backstory
Raised on a farm in Kilkenny by an intensely miserable father; now living as an Irish expat in England, using the contrast between English life and rural Irish soil as comedic fodder.
Details
- Released
- Taped
- 2024, Blackfriars, Glasgow
- Runtime
- 55 min
- Where
- YouTube
- Director
- Pete Wells
- Honors
- 4-star rating from The Arts Dispatch
- Topics
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