Turn It On

KEVIN McALEER: “Turn It On” (EMI)

“MY GRANDMOTHER, she would say a decade of the rosary before every Kojak: ‘Please God for a happy and a peaceful and a trouble-free Kojak. St. Jude intercede’. Aye. And the decade wouldn’t be right out of her mouth when there’d be some poor man lyin’ dead on the pavement.”

Who else could this be but Kevin McAleer? The Border Fascist himself, the man who has turned nonsense into a quantum science. Surreal is an imprecise word that is used these days to describe anything remotely druggy or strange, but McAleer’s comedy is truly surreal. The world from which his monologues spring is always recognisable but, at the same time, strangely distorted and off-centre, and shot through with a seam of stark, raving lunacy.

1993 has been a phenomenal year for McAleer. His numerous Irish tours have all been sell-outs, and within days of their release this tape and the accompanying video were both topping the sales charts. Turn It On is a souvenir Best Of selection from his story-telling repertoire, much of which was recorded live at Dublin’s Tivoli Theatre. All the greats are here from his musings on Gary Glitter and the Irish language to his celebration of Dana’s love for her boyfriend (“Everything used to remind her of him – snowdrops, daffodils, butterflies, bees, things of the sea, marine life in general, all kinds of everything, in fact”) and, of course, his recollections of the glory days of television when Garda Patrol, Closedown and Kojak were king.

For sheer comic effect, the video is a better buy because you get to see the look on McAleer’s face (the lopsided grin, the double-glazed eyes) while he’s in full flight, but both formats are guaranteed to have you weeping with laughter.

Turn it, as we used to say, in those days, on!

• Liam Fay