Carl Donnelly: Shall We All Just Kill Ourselves?

Heroes@the Spiegelyurt (Venue 327)

★★★★

He’s won a heap of awards and done all the big famous comedian things – but this is your chance to see Carl Donnelly in a yurt.

He welcomes his audience into the venue with the Philip Glass soundtrack of the 1982 film Koyaaanisqatsi. If you don’t know it – and some of today’s audience probably weren’t even born when it came out – it is a documentary based on the Hopi Indian word which means “world out of balance”.

Donnelly is a working-class vegan with a spiritual bent.

He’s acknowledged his mental health issues, he meditates, he wears a crystal. This is a show about how to be all those things, to care about people and about the planet but not to take yourself too damn seriously.

Spirituality doesn’t have to be a drag – and Donnelly is living proof. He strolls casually around the tent, giggling about the fact he finds himself performing in a yurt in an underpass, connecting effortlessly with his audience with stories about class, childhood, old people, relationships and family. It’s a beautifully balanced performance, both acknowledging that the world is in a perilous state and showing the way we can learn to live a bit more easily with each other.

Some of the audience have bought tickets, others are expecting to give money after the show. But Donnelly asks them instead to give the money to a homeless person on their way home. It is a lovely notion – and reminds us that even though things are looking a bit rough, we all have the power to make the world a better place.