Tom Moran has brought his one-man show to New York as part of the Origin First Irish Festival, and it is the kind of production that makes this sort of festivals so wonderful. Moran is a charming, thoughtful and quite funny fellow, who believes if the audience got to really know him, they would hate him. Even so, quite the opposite is true.

Moran is a self-described people-pleaser, and has spent most of his 31 years on this planet trying to make sure everyone is always OK. Aiding him (for want of a better verb) are his parents who seem to be just as delightful as he appears to be. Mom is a highly emotional, adopted Irish girl, while Dad is . . . . Put it this way, his Dad once asked his Mom in the middle of an argument “What ARE feelings?”

Now, the Irish raconteur is a character type that may have reached its zenith with the late, great Dave Allen who could hold RTE and BBC audiences is the palm of his hand – the hand that didn’t have the ciggie and the glass of whiskey. Moran is of a different generation, and so he talks about much different things (and performs without the support of nicotine or alcohol). But he tells his more vulnerable and embarrassing (to him) tales in that same noble, and very amusing, tradition.

Perhaps the most telling episode is the appendectomy. One day, young Tom Moran decided to fake a stomach pain to stay home from school. Through his own desire for a quiet life surrounded by contented people, he wound up on the operating table to have a healthy appendix removed. Why? It seemed that the time to come clean about it all was well in the past. Fortunately, you don’t need your appendix so no harm done in the end (?).

Moran walks us through several other chapters of his life, some uproariously funny and some truly sad. The technical crew assist with lighting and sound that help delineate one scene from the next in a way that enhances rather than distracts from the production. Moran is a wonderful story-teller, but a great many one-man shows boast of that. What makes this show so good is how very honest and open Moran is about his personal fears and demons. Those are not unique to him; many in the audience probably share them. But Tom Moran is the one who stood up on stage and talked about them.

I happened to see a matinee, and often, matinees are lower energy than evening productions. Moran came out like it was Saturday night and everyone was a couple drams into the evening already. Getting laughs on Saturday is easy. Moran got belly-laughs on a gray Wednesday at 2 pm.

As he ends the show, he paints a cheery picture of his present. He is engaged to be married, he is sober and he is thin. He is looking forward to what comes next. So am I. Perhaps in 10 years, I will get to review another play he might call “Tom Moran is a NOT Big, Fat, Filthy, Disgusting Liar After All.”

Because he isn’t, not really.

Running Time: 70 minutes without intermission

Tom Moran is a Big, Fat, Filthy, Disgusting Liar is playing now through April 20 at the Irish Repertory Theatre at 132 W. 22^nd Street in New York City. For tickets, visit the Origin Theatre’s site.