Culchie In America: A Local Take On Culture Shock

By Ronan Winters

Poster for Aaron McCann's Tour

Comedy to me is one of my favourite art forms due to the flexibility it has, whether its light-hearted observations on everyday life or eye-opening satire about the world, it plays an important part in everyday life.

I like most people my age got an introduction to Northern Irish Comedy through viral videos like I am Fighter or Nordie Shore or even shows such as the Blame Game.

However the first time I heard of the stand-up scene was from The General Banter Podcast; a weekly podcast hosted by Colin Geddis, a comedian who was the brains behind I am Fighter. It was through it that I first discovered of the comedy scene here in Northern Ireland. It was that was introduced to Aaron McCann, a hilarious comedian from Omagh. McCann recently spent a year in Los Angeles to further practice his craft of comedy and was featured numerous times on the podcast Kill Tony.

McCann returned from his excursion from LA this year and produced a special stand up tour throughout the country titled “Culchie In America” which covered themes of culture shock and pursuing your dreams. I feel these themes really related to the younger generations who’ve had to leave Northern Ireland to different countries in pursuit of education or opportunity to achieve their dreams. McCann’s expertly injects humour into the differences between the US and NI whether it’s the confusion caused by our accents or how insanely easy it is to buy weed in LA.

Culchie In America’s Belfast show as held in the wonderful Limelight 2 which has shows of the Limelight Comedy Club that takes place every Thursday. The show was opened by Conor Keys who had an excellent fifteen-minute performance full of amusing takes on family life, marriage, and parenthood as well as some jokes on holidays tying in with the theme of culture shock.

After a short interval, the boisterous McCann hits the stage with a bottle of Buckfast in hand and swigs it before he kicks off the show. Throughout the show, McCann effortlessly glides from joke to joke creating raucous laughter from the audience with hilarious tales of failed attempts of trying to order McNuggets to playlist mishaps in a Strip Club.

Culchie In America was a fantastic show displaying a local view of the American Dream and had me laughing all the way through it. I highly recommend to check out McCann's Twitter and Facebook pages to keep up with where he is performing and to also support our local scene by seeing these talented performers whether it's their own shows or appearance at the multiple comedy nights at venues like Pug Ugly’s, Lavery’s and Limelight.