Amazon Prime Video
The American comic largely abstains from telling about his adventures in celibacy in a slick and wry standup special
It’s an odd one, this. American comic Kevin James Doyle has secured an Amazon Prime Video special with The 30 Year Old Virgin, a show that debuted on the Edinburgh fringe and relates his adventures in celibacy. Or does it? The set begins with an account of Doyle’s religious upbringing in the midwest, and is performed in a New York church, placing its theme of religious sexual abstinence further front and centre. But much of the show – too much – has nothing to do with Doyle’s virginity whatsoever.
He tees up the subject well, with an opening that stars his sweet-natured, holier-than-thou parents and their substitute swear words, and recalls young Kevin having to ask his schoolmates what “jerking off” was all about. But the central section veers off course, relaying at length Doyle’s engagement, “premarital counselling” and breakup, and his worship of the actor Philip Seymour Hoffman. It’s amusing enough, as Doyle wonders whether to weaponise an outdoor drinking charge against his ex-fiancee. But it’s unrelated to the story he’s meant to be telling – to the extent that he glaringly omits to address the question of his sexual relationship (or lack of it) with his partner of two years’ standing.
