New Yorker Taylor Mac played on Sunday at the Project, a benefit for Belong2, in a wonderfully life-affirming performance art piece – or, as he would describe it, a play. This was entertainment using play in all its meanings: child’s play, theatrical play, sex play, wordplay. Highly intelligent and fluidly articulate, musically gifted and haunting, Taylor evokes the archetypal fool, la folle, who cannot tell a lie, the clown whose painted face conceals a moving vulnerability. He is also wonderfully, joyously funny and anarchic.

It’s a while since I’ve seen such a compelling, emotionally naked, inspiring evening in a theatre, and the immediate standing ovation at the end was richly deserved. (Irish audiences rarely do this, I’ve noticed.) He is profoundly political in a way that only truly brave genderfuckers can be – out on a limb, challenging, defiant and subversive. This is but a short rave mention as I was loath to take notes which would have attracted attention, sitting as I was in the front row, which in Taylor’s plays is asking for trouble. And I was enjoying the experience of this wonderfully crafted piece too much – it was, in turns, poignant, sad, chilling, energising, optimistic and bawdy; there wasn’t a moment without a scintillating and yet tender energy, and he had us eating out of the palm of his hand. Chatting with him afterwards was a real treat, he is a real gentleman. And damn good looking. He says he’ll be back in Dublin next year, but you can catch him tomorrow in the Galway Arts Festival in Cuba at 9pm. Don’t miss him.