Nasty Character

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.