I enjoyed his ~22 minute Comedy Central Presents back in 2010, but this just felt prolonged.
And yes, his piano playing is great (He's no Tim Minchin - check him out if you haven't heard of him)
The jokes went on a little too long, particularly once he moves to the piano. He is anchored there and I felt he moved to it too soon. He stretched the jokes and became quite repetitive and I don't it think showcased particular versatility on the piano because of this.
I felt like he needed two more solid bits before going to the piano and tightening that aspect of the show up.
I won't spoil the ending in terms of content, but it was awkward, self indulgent and the show hadn't built enough momentum to warrant the change in pace; someone even shouted out something along the lines of "get on with it".
I found myself laughing at one or two lines in a 3 to 4 minute bit. That's not a great ratio.
He had some lines that were very good and I thought were really original takes, but they stood out because they were far above the rest.
Hey, comedy is so subjective; person, mood, material. I'll give it another watch, I usually do for that reason, but I was looking for a little more.
We're going to watch this tonight, so I'll report back with what we think!
This special was very similar to the live show we saw, I'd say about 1/2 the jokes were new material for us. We enjoyed it, but I can definitely say being there in person was much funnier. You feed off the crowd and in our case it was an intimate venue and some great heckling that Owen handle brilliantly.
Shout by Justin NemethDirectorBlockedParent2013-07-01T19:40:12Z
I've seen Owen live one time headlining at a local comedy club. It was really good and he's a super talented piano player too. There was this heckler at our show and it was very awkward since the guy was a moron, but it turned out awesome and Owen and he become best buds by the end! I'm interested in checking this special out to see how it compares.