Patrick Moore: Mamas’ Boy Review by Jamie Lerner
In grammar, the placement of an apostrophe is significant, but in the case of Patrick Moore’s Fringe show, Mamas’ Boy, it’s essential. Mamas is a plurality to denote Patrick’s lesbian moms. He never realized having lesbian moms wasn’t normal. But in Mamas’ Boy, Patrick takes us on his journey of discovering how growing up with lesbian moms may have been different from other people’s childhood experiences.
Patrick has an easy and conversational delivery about him. Even though he emits a bit of a hyper energy, one that often leads to uncontrollable laughter throughout the room, he carries himself with confidence. Perhaps this is because he grew up with two moms without a ‘masculine’ presence in his life … aside from his chosen family aunt.
Thanks to his moms, Patrick became a drug-loving American husband to a German woman, which creates a whole new plethora of comedic material. How could Patrick’s moms have known he’d grow up to be a comedian? But also, how could they not know? Patrick clearly has a sensibility to the audience, attuned to what may or may not get a rise out of us as he apologizes to the older women in the room for his experience with drugs. (“I grew up in the ‘60s,” one rebuttals, “I was at Woodstock.”)
The show isn’t perfect — Patrick has the potential to take his jokes much further to elicit applause breaks instead of light continuous chuckles. He has the charisma and passion, but his joke-writing leaves more to be desired. All of that said, Patrick is a positive presence in the European Comedy scene, with his natural charm and easy humor making us proud to be among his peers.
Patrick Moore: Mamas’ Boy runs until Aug. 25 at 16:55 at Laughing Horse @ City Cafe – Nineties.
