Glasgow Comedy Festival

Dylan Moran - Off The Hook, Clyde Auditorium

five stars

Lorraine Wilson

The hair is still unkempt and the glass of red wine in its rightful place, but there's something different about Dylan Moran.

He might be cuddlier, due to taking to the fridge after giving up the fags, but there's a fire in that belly that has sharpened his humour. He can rightly claim to be the voice of a generation - that generation being 42-year-old fathers of two, feeling their age and increasingly baffled by the world. That's not shtick either, it's real. Whether he is contemplating technology, television, politics, comfort eating, children or pets, the observations run so much deeper than before. A phrase such as "the mouth is the interface between you and the cosmos" is difficult to forget.

Describing his new physique as "interesting European delicatessen fat" rather than American fat says more in four words than many stand-ups could in five minutes, and a section where he describes the difference between romance and love isn't just funny, it's heartfelt and heartbreaking. If he doesn't feel things as deeply as he appears to, his best acting performances are to come.

Also, his time living in Scotland means that he has developed not only a cracking Scottish accent for a rumination on why we hate the Tories so much, but an obvious understanding of his adopted homeland.

Unlike the majority of stand-up shows, this doesn't flag. At all. As laughs build upon laughs, a slight hysteria builds in the room. The timing is impeccable and his take on the most mundane parts of everyday life is plucked from an ether that no other comedian seems to be able to access.

If stars mean anything, five aren't enough. With Off The Hook Moran has claimed a place among the stand-up greats.