EdFringe Review: Terry Christian: Confessions of an Irish Catholic

I don’t know that Terry Christian’s Confessions of an Irish Catholic are all that biting, but they are funny. In fact, if anything, I’d say his 60 autobiographical minutes are marked by a wonky, charming affection for the faith of his youth.

Sure, he might come out in Monsignor’s robes, complete with an aspergillum with which to ‘bless’ the audience, but after a couple of cheeky digs at predatory priests, he’s out of the vestments and taking the audience on a whistlestop tour of his childhood as the son of Irish immigrants to Manchester.

Definitely don’t mention “being poor, but happy” to Terry, but there’s a definite nostalgia for these memoirs of a 4-year-old shoplifter, and the dilemma of confession after discovering masturbation. If you were expecting the ‘controversial’ Terry of The Word fame, I think you’ll be surprised by his low-key, pretty darn genial good humour. His observations on growing up with other immigrants, and the differences between Black and Irish households is particularly fun.

“I don’t know that Terry Christian’s Confessions of an Irish Catholic are all that biting, but they are funny. In fact, if anything, I’d say his 60 autobiographical minutes are marked by a wonky, charming affection for the faith of his youth.”

Soon, however, he’s come to his main topic for the night: superstition. He sees it as the hangover from a Catholic upbringing, but if you ask me, he’s in no rush to be free from it.

He’s even brought a statuette of each for this show and tell, and has a grand old time taking each up and riffing on their supposed virtues, and the superstitions wrapped around them. Read another way, what follows is the account of a family miracle, and then a pop-quiz covering favourite saints, complete with statuettes. (Between you and me, Terry may be a self-confessed Atheist for now, but I’m wondering if he’s more a lapsed Catholic, than totally collapsed…)

He has great fun riffing on the supposed uses of each saint e.g. praying to St.Anthony to find your lost keys, or St.Jude if you’re a bit of a lose cause. Even those ‘in the know’ might be surprised to learn the Irish traditions surrounding The Infant of Prague, or just how commonplace levitation is amongst these spiritual superheroes.

His last act turns to his professional career and how he negotiated the television and arts scene as the working-class fish out of water. It’s now he doubles down on the nods he’s been making to luck, helping to make or break a lot of people’s fortunes, including his own. It chimes with his chat about saints and their luck-based traditions, but he could make this thread stronger throughout, so the set hangs together a little tighter.

Despite this, there’s no denying that Terry tells his story well, and that when Sean Ryder and Ben of the Happy Mondays enter the scene, his tales only get barmier and funnier. I think for many, Terry’s Stand-Up will prove a revelation. I, for one, think he’d make a perfectly good host for a nature show on tv or radio.

So good luck to him – let’s hope he has a statue of St. Clare of Assisi at hand to help with his future endevours.