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Todd Barry ‘From Heaven’ CD

Having never really listened to comedy without a visual before, I was intrigued to see what it would be like with just a voice, and no visuals, to make me laugh. Todd Barry’s ‘From Heaven’ was the disc in question, and Barry’s distinct voice, almost like an automated phone call, at least made up for the lack of pictures in some way.

To say Barry is a sarcastic comedian would be an understatement, he is quite possibly the most sarcastic comedian I have ever had the pleasure of listening to. Whether that’s good or bad I’ll leave for you to decide, but take the likes of Angus Deayton and Jimmy Carr, multiply them by five, and you’ve probably reached the level of sarcasm that Barry delivers at.

The CD, recorded in front of an enthusiastic crowd in America, is broken down into 16 short tracks, with each track containing three or four jokes. Some of the tracks are better than others, but with them averaging at just three minutes each, it’s hard to settle into his comedy.

One thing I would say, with practically all his jokes being sarcastic, you can often work out what the punch line before it comes out of his mouth, which sort of ruins it for me. But Barry still makes his sarcasm sound much funnier than you or I would. He’s good at what he does, but he didn’t having me rolling around on the floor or crying from the laughter.

I thought the first track, ‘Working with me’, was a funny start, where he thanked the comedians who warmed up the crowd for him and then talked about how lucky they were to be working under him. Big headed yes, but with his sarcasm it worked nicely and I was looking forward to hearing more.

There were other highlights, including track 7, his jokes about MySpace and some of the unbelievable questions he gets from fans, where he then compares himself to bigger names who wouldn’t be asked the same ridicualus questions, like when he gets e-mails from fans asking how old do you have to be to get into a venue he’s performing at. I also enjoyed track 11, Anal and alarm clocks, which is definitely worth a listen.

But although there were a few laughs along the way, there was too many times when I was actually wondering why the crowd was going wild, because to me half the act didn’t warrant applause. Track 13, Nurses T-Shirt, Kids T-Shirt, was the worst of the lot, it just didn’t do it for me.

In all fairness, too much sarcasm is not my type of comedy, and I think I am someone who laughs more with visuals, but the content of this show is not worth writing home about, let alone to heaven.