Stand
up comedienne Jo Caulfield will remember Chorley for two reasons.
The audience rewriting one of her jokes - and the Hartwood Hall
Hotel.
The
Hartwood certainly made an impression on the TV and Radio 4 regular
as she stopped off in Chorley for her 'Cruel to be Kind' tour.
Imagining a boutique hotel set in rolling grounds and not a
Beefeater, she drove round and round the roundabout on the A6 and
thought: "This can't be it." She was underwhelmed. "No
Sky TV. And only one plugpoint. So no TV if you want to put the
kettle on."
Jack
Daniels and coke in hand, she started her 90 minute set at the
Chorley Little Theatre complaining that a younger comedian was lazy
for suggesting vodka and Red Bull got alcohol into the bloodstream
more quickly. "Why can't he get to the bar two hours earlier
like the rest of us?"
In
an evenly paced set that had the audience laughing out loud
throughout, Jo revealed her love of TV reality shows and her dislike
of self service supermarket checkouts and the way people in love talk
to their new partners. The highlight of the set was her longer
observational material, including the story of bumping into someone
in HMV that she recognised very slightly, meeting his fiancée
at dinner and then realising she didn't know the couple at all.
After
the interval, Jo asked the audience for marks out of ten on some new
gags. For the joke "Don't you hate it when people offer you
food to show off the fact that they've been abroad?", they even
contributed a better punchline, suggesting "Have a slice of
Arctic Roll" should finish with "it's from Iceland"
rather than Tesco. Ms Caulfield was suitably impressed. "You're
brilliant, Chorley."
The
set finished with her running through some of the audience's pet
hates (men, dog waste, Mormons), a list she admitted was much more
irreverent than those of other venues she'd played, who had
concentrated on the global economic crisis. "You're very angry,
Chorley."
Hopefully
memories of Chorley and the gag that the Little Theatre audience
rewrote will stay with her. From her caustic tweets the following
day, memories of the Hartwood certainly will.
