Irishman in L.A.: looking, laughing

As anyone who’s spent time in a Dublin taxi can attest, you can count on an Irishman to give you a rollickingly chatty tour. No matter if he’s new in town and doesn’t yet know the terrain. It only takes a few minutes of observation for him to start riffing on the everyday oddities that go unrecognized by most natives.

This kind of quirky cultural anthropology is what Tommy Tiernan (touted as Ireland’s “most popular comedian”) is offering L.A. audiences with his stand-up act “Loose,” which opened Wednesday at the Macgowan Little Theater as part of UCLA Live’s British/Irish Comedy Invasion.

A mild fellow given to cursing when he wants to make an exasperated point, Tiernan tries to pass himself off as the uncensored, politically incorrect voice that we all work vigilantly to suppress. But he’s really a Gaelic Eddie Izzard (without the weird drag or literary polish) -- in other words, a highly sensitive human Geiger counter for the outlandishness surrounding us.

How else would we come to see the absurdity of that late-term pregnant woman jogging through Westwood? To Tiernan this epitomizes California craziness. Running is something you do to get from one pub to the other on a cold, rainy night, and only if you’ve had enough pints to fuel yourself.

But then L.A. is filled with all sorts of incongruous sights. Take that church with the Bel-Air Security sign posted in front. Does Jesus, he wonders, really want the desperately destitute to be subject to an armed response?

Tiernan, a self-described mischievous imp, dwells on things you’re not supposed to find funny.

He pokes fun at American Indians, imagining the bison and awful casinos throughout Europe had they been the colonizers.

He frighteningly considers what would have happened to the Irish if Hitler’s mother had exposed her son too early to the artistry of “Riverdance.”

And he complains vehemently about the lack of humor in the Bible. (“When Jesus said, ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,’ he should have added, for a laugh, ‘I guess that would be me’?”)

A 36-year-old with graying stubble and a familiar friendliness, Tiernan doesn’t offend even when he calls us fat. What boggles him, however, is our national obsession with cheese. No matter what he’s ordering, people ask him if he’d like some -- even when he’s just picking up the L.A. Times.

Not all of his material has crossed the Atlantic well.

His African jokes, inspired from the years his family lived there, bomb. And a segment on one of his Irish drinking mates who decided to run a marathon, though it allows Tiernan to flaunt his skills as a caricaturist, is probably a lot funnier back home, where fitness still has a faint air of fanaticism and hangovers are the stereotypical norm.

Fresher is his take on the drug charges dogging Ireland’s Olympic gold medals. (He does an entertaining parody of swimmer Michelle Smith strung out on amphetamines, challenging anyone to beat her at the women’s javelin.) The subject allows him to meditate on the laid-back way the Irish relate to the law. According to him, anyone in Galway involved in a dispute would consider it a sorry lack of imagination to involve the authorities.

As casual as its title, “Loose” rarely reaches pinnacles of wit. Tiernan doesn’t so much detonate punch lines as deal out wry descriptions that move, transition-less, from topic to topic. Every now and again he engages rambunctious audience members who want to be heard. And it’s here that you realize he could easily do 90 more minutes of mirthful free-association. But affable as he is amusing, Tiernan knows better than to overstay his welcome.

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‘Loose’

Where: Macgowan Little Theater, UCLA campus, Westwood

When: 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays

Ends: April 2

Price: $20 and $25

Contact: (310) 825-2101

Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes