At last year's Brighton Comedy Festival he tried to Fix Everything. This year he Checked Everything but his conclusion was the same - life is hard and it's no better on the other side of the rainbow.

David O'Doherty is so close to being happy but a pizza wheel, Niagra Falls, a faster internet connection, everything disappoints as his life judders round the roulette wheel of life.

O'Doherty is as much a stand up comedian as Ivor Cutler was. His music is a vital ingredient and there was much frustrated keyboard stabbing to emphasise his inability to escape life's two headed demon, optimism and gullibility.

The delivery was fluid and pacey, the use of language imaginative, as you might expect from a Dubliner.

O'Doherty is an author, a playwright, an actor, and his 75 minute performance constantly deconstructed itself in an attempt to escape the confines of an ordinary stand-up show.

He referred to it as "a demotivating seminar" - think of anything for longer than five seconds and it's horrific.

In his search for happiness there is a tiny possibility that the Irishman will return next year with David O'Doherty Has Found God, but no possibility of David O'Doherty Has Said Everything.