Review: NIAMH DENYER: GET BLESSED!, Pleasance Theatre

“Making your depressing event marginally less depressing since 2009”

If you’ve ever wanted to learn how to properly deliver a funeral, look no further than “top celebrant Áine Reilly.” In Nimah Denyer: Get Blessed!, Denyer becomes Áine, presenting her course on funerals to a crowd of eager participants. 

The whole show is a part of Áine’s series on “how to become a generic spiritual celebrant,” which we are told is made up of twenty courses and includes the premium course, Goblin Readings, as everyone has a goblin within them, “they just need a voice.” 

Denyer’s comedy is accompanied by a terrible, yet brilliant, PowerPoint presentation with purposefully bad graphic design and stock footage used. The timing of the slides with Denyer’s jokes is fantastic and enhances the show. One highlight included a segment where Áine discusses things she has banned from her funerals, including balloon animals, colourful clothing, mayo on sandwiches and classical music. I also loved the recurring joke of Áine’s obsession with Michael O’Leary, the current CEO of Ryanair, a man she bases her business model on and seems to be quite attracted to.

The use of deadpan humour by Denyer is brilliant, especially when interacting with audience members. In my favourite segment, Áine teaches the audience how to properly use ridiculously cheesy phrases like “Everything happens for a reason” (which does have its limitations!) to comfort those attending funeral, but she emphasis that you must appear to be emotional while actually being dead inside, as “it can be quite daunting to actually mean it.” 

There are several lessons that participants are taught throughout the show with titles like “Who Are They?,” where we learn how to make depressing facts from the deceased’s love ones sound like the deceased led a brilliant life, “Add-Ons,” in which we learn how to make the perfect Grazing Platter, “Dealing with Competitors,” in which Áine uses the example of her friend-turned-rival Mary to show how to take down your competitors within the celebrant industry and “What to Wear,” where Áine declares “I can wear whatever I want, even at a wedding.” 

One of the main aspects of the show is audience participation, which begins from the moment the audience walks into the theatre, with Áine asking them about their commute and handing out biscuits from a tin. Throughout the show, Áine talks with audience members and sometimes invites them to take part in activities, including selecting one person in the front row to make a sample grazing platter. A hilarious bit involved everyone drawing what outfit they would wear to their first funeral as a celebrant, each being judged by Áine at the end of two minutes. 

Finally, at the end of the show, audiences get to see Áine in action, observing her funeral ceremony for Colm Culhane. The ceremony is just as chaotic as you would expect but manages to nicely tie in everything from the PowerPoint presentation, making for a satisfying conclusion to the show. 

Ultimately, Nimah Denyer: Get Blessed! is a fun Ted-talk-style comedy show that will have audience members laughing at a funeral. Denyer does a great job of combining crowd word, a slide presentation and her own comedy into the show, weaving a solid narrative with a hilarious conclusion. 

Nimah Denyer: Get Blessed! ran on 23 November at Pleasance London.

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