Chris Ramsey, Chorley Little Theatre, 27 November 2012

Chris Ramsey likes Chorley. He was back at the Little Theatre within 18 months of his last visit and has already booked a further gig at the venue in April of next year. With his Feeling Lucky tour he was bringing a brand new stand up show to town and on more than one occasion in front of a full house told the audience how pleased he was to be there.

Hailing from South Shields and most recently starring in the BBC comedy Hebburn set in the North East, Ramsey often laughs at his own jokes because, as he admits, he doesn't always know what he's going to say until a second before the words come out of his mouth.

In a 95 minute set, he focused on how lucky the audience were to be there in the Little Theatre, and how genetics and historical chance had brought them all to that point. In his own case, having his Dad drop him on his head as a two year old and then Ramsey almost drown himself in a swimming pool whilst on holiday in Spain were particular adventures that he was lucky to survive.

Although there were a series of themes that developed from his central argument about luck, the main theme itself could have been better developed and in truth the set flagged at one or two points.  However Ramsey’s engaging style of delivery kept the attention of his predominantly youthful audience and kept the laughter flowing.

The climax of his act wove his account of a sky dive and the recurring theme of his Dad's taste for practical jokes together. If you are a nervous flyer, Ramsey's description of preparing to leap from a small aircraft ('it was like a van with wings') will not make you any more likely to want to board an aeroplane.

Ramsey made headlines earlier in the year for being accused of breaking into his parents’ house, and his photograph on the mantelpiece and his driving licence carrying his parents’ address did not immediately convince the constabulary of his innocence.  He had something to say both about Russell Brand's predilection for female company and Roy 'Chubby’ Brown's reputation for telling racist jokes, neither of which he seems to appreciate.  He also had to admit to being kicked off Sky TV’s Saturday morning programme Soccer AM for making inappropriate comments.

But Ramsey is hardly controversial.  His material is no more filthy than that of many modern stand ups, although he possibly bases more of his material around using public lavatories than most.  Ramsey admits to not using public toilets if he can avoid them, but has various stories about encounters with lavatory attendants with whom he seems to have the unhappy knack of encountering, usually immediately after they have cleaned their establishmentand are leaning on their mop admiring their work and when he is desperate to use their facilities.

Ramsey engages with his audience, laughing at their jokes and making barbed comments as appropriate that take the crowd along with him.  He didn't  fill the Chorley Little Theatre in 2011.  In 2012 it was deservedly packed out for his return.  Grab tickets for his April appearance while you still can.

Jenny Eclair, Chorley Little Theatre, 5 November 2012

Jenny Eclair's Eclarious tour brought her back to Chorley Little Theatre for the second time in under two years.  She could sell out bigger venues but would appear to like the intimacy that Chorley's home of comedy provides.

After a nervous start, in which her delivery was noticably rushed, she settled into her stride.  She gave us a taste of her novel, which was nothing more than middle age porn with its references to sumptuous furniture, before prowling the stage and launching into an exploration of the issues facing women of a certain age.

Eclair is from Lytham St Annes, and whilst her familiarity with the North West is welcome, as the audience was immediately able to picture her portrayal of her no nonsense mother, the story about what she got up to in the bus shelter in Lytham is less so. How she got such big biceps is a gag that was told on her last visit and was one of several jokes that she told last time she played Chorley and which should have been rested.

She was funnier with her newer material, with much of her act focused on the perils of being over 50, whether that is lack of bladder control or having to hold onto one's breasts when running to stop them flopping about.  She is unimpressed with Madonna's propensity to flash her nipples when other women of a similar age are more inclined to slump on the sofa drooling biscuit crumbs from their mouth.

Jenny doesn't really do sex, and doesn't know why her partner Geoff is still with her given her overall decrepitude.  Her preoccupation is with how her body, and those of all women of her age, is changing, whether it's her hair falling out or the shape of her knees.  These are revealed to a disbelieving audience to be rather, er, manly.

Eclair does not have any pretensions. At home she prefers to spend the day in her night dress if she can, and doesn't like unannounced casual visitors because it means she has to put her clothes on when she could simply stay in her knickers. Small children are particularly unwelcome because of their tendency to make a mess.

Eclair attracts a predominantly female audience - 90% of the Chorley Little Theatre crowd were women - and they loved her take on post menopausal life.  But the men too were laughing out loud.

Another sell out gig at Chorley Little Theatre and a happy comedy audience.

The Rolling Stones, O2 Arena, London, 25 September 2012

By rights the Rolling Stones should be part of a Sixties nostalgia package, pitching up at Preston Guildhall once a year and running through their number one hits in a 20 minute slot before making way for Gerry and the Pacemakers or Herman's Hermits. Instead they are charging £375 for tickets at the O2 in Greenwich, which singer Mick Jagger wryly noted isn't that far from Dartford, where they started out fifty years ago.
Their ticket prices generated headlines when they were announced, and the Stones have always been about headlines, whether it's drug busts or inappropriate use of a Mars bar. And the reason why they're not relegated to touring as a Sixties act in municipal venues across suburban England but can still sell out arenas around the globe is because they have a treasure trove of rock classics and a mastery of the craft of putting on a rock show that few bands can match.They also, despite their ages, love what they do. Guitarists Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood were in fine fettle and drummer Charlie Watts, resplendent in white tee shirt, was captured on the big screen that was projected behind the stage grinning from ear to ear.

The band's delight at being back on stage shone through in their performance. From the opening bars of their second ever single I Wanna Be Your Man, written for them by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, through to a thunderous Jumping Jack Flash, the band were on fire. Hits from Get Off My Cloud and It's All Over Now through to Start Me Up and a note perfect Brown Sugar came in wave after wave, reminding the audience that as well as being rock's perennial bad boys the Rolling Stones have recorded a juke box full of great songs.
But they also have a slew of album tracks from the late sixties and early seventies on which their musical legend is built and Wild Horses, Gimme Shelter and Sympathy for the Devil all get an outing as does a pulsating Midnight Rambler with Mick Taylor, who is officially the only past or present member of the Stones to look more like a building labourer than a rock star, making a guest appearance on lead guitar and stalking Jagger across the stage.

Honky Tonk Women, Miss You and a Bill Wyman backed It's Only Rock'n'Roll added to the occasion, the group knowing exactly which buttons to push to get the audience up dancing and singing along.

The highlight of the show was undoubtedly the encore, with the anthemic You Can't Always Get What You Want played to the accompaniment of a full choir sending a collective shiver down the spine of the audience. Were the ticket prices outrageous? Yes. Did the band give value for money? Yes. Can you put a price on seeing the greatest rock'n'roll band in the world for what could be the (very) last time? Absolutely not.

At the end, Mick Jagger stayed on stage bowing to the audience long after the rest of the band had left, so perhaps this really is the last time and perhaps the Stones will finally just make headlines for what they'll always be remembered for - their music.

The Wedding Present, The Ritz, Manchester, 9 November 2012

The Wedding Present were once termed an indie band.  But whilst they might be 'semi legendary', as self effacing main man David Gedge introduced them, the 'indie' label hardly seems appropriate for an act whose three guitarists are at one point all facing their amps and trying to extract maximum feedback from their instruments.  And I was reminded, as Gedge closed their 90 minute set by wringing one last riff out of his guitar with two broken strings flapping in the breeze, of no less a comparator than Neil Young.  The hair may be shorter but the aural barrage is pure grunge.  Maybe the Godfather of Indie and the Godfather of Grunge should talk.

The gig was showcasing the band's Seamonsters album, which is twenty years old.  Personally, I don't think playing an album in its entirety and in the order the tracks originally appeared works as a device.  Heather would make it into my all time fave Wedding Present tunes.  Some of the other things on the album frankly wouldn't, and even if I was a big fan of Seamonsters I'd prefer the tracks to be sprinkled around the set.  Surely part of the fun is not knowing which songs that a band with a back catalogue stretching back more than 25 years is going to spring on an audience?

That criticism apart, it was a great gig and the large audience (large describes the kind of middle aged man who was a skinny indie kid 25 years ago) had a good time.  Before reaching the main course of Seamonsters, the band served up a series of starters , with Girl From The DDR off their last album Valentina and various other delights including Mars Sparkles Down On Me, the delectable Sports Car and the ever dependable My Favourite Dress.

The show was over too quick and, as always with Mr Gedge, there was no encore.  One day perhaps he will surprise the audience at the end of a concert by popping up back before the microphone instead of at the merchandise stall.  I went home clutching my newly purchased Live 1991 CD, which features tracks from Seamonsters played out of sequence to how they appear on the original studio album, and listened to Heather all over again.  Loud!

Rob Rouse, Chorley Little Theatre, 10 November 2012

Being related to a comedian can't be easy.  Les Dawson's mother-in-law was the butt of many of his jokes, and stand ups who use observational material will inevitably be drawn to the people around them as subjects.

It seems doubtful that Mrs Rob Rouse realised that her bladder and bowel movements were going to feature quite so prominently in his act when she first started dating the comedian, who was visiting Chorley Little Theatre on his 'Life Sentences' tour.  Not that Mrs Rouse is the only member of the household whose toilet habits get a mention since the bowel movements of Rouse, his children and one of their friends all get discussed.

Chorley Little Theatre was barely half full for this exploration of the Rouse family's bodily functions, but those audience members who came wrapped in their coats to brave the slightly chilly temperature were soon warmed by the laughter Rouse generated.

After an introductory joke about Saturday evenings being a comedian's Monday morning and how it was important not to dive straight into work in case you make a mistake such as 'Chorley police tasering a blind man with a white stick', Rouse turned to his main themes for the evening.

One was his four year old son, who features heavily in Rouse's act, whether it's the tale of him appearing at his father's bedside at 5.30am to begin the endless stream of questions that a growing young mind needs answering or bursting into the lavatory with his potty to share an intimate moment with Dad and let the postman see the two of them having a bowel movement.

Rouse's at the time unborn daughter also features, with the effect of her her penchant for poking his heavily pregnant wife's bladder acted out on stage.  Her birth at home is also described in graphic detail, and one hopes that Mrs Rouse was given the opportunity to vet the material before her husband performed it to a wider audience.

Life as a parent is acutely observed, with his son's testing of his father's patience by prodding a lump of cheese with his finger bringing flashbacks for anyone who has raised a toddler.

A member of the audience was invited to drink a cup of tea that may have been made with Rouse's wife's breast milk ('but to tell you the truth I really can't remember') and sportingly took up the challenge, while the audience's reaction to the idea was 'milked' for all that it was worth.

Rouse is witty, filthy and thoroughly engaging as a comedian but definitely not for the under 16s, and you probably wouldn't want to be sat next to your gran at a Rob Rouse show either.  He wasn't fazed by the sparse audience and created an intimate atmosphere with his warm manner and enthusiastic way in which he threw himself around.  (For a 'stand up', he spent quite a proportion of his act on the floor.

The Chorley gig was filmed for a DVD and audience members present on the night have been promised a free copy.  When they drop through the letterbox it'll be a chance to show their comedy loving friends who decided to give the show a miss that this genuinely funny man deserves a bigger audience.  And a chance for Mrs Rouse to consider whether she wants her husband in the delivery room if she chooses to have another baby.

Rolling Stones - Crossfire Hurricane

Crossfire Hurricane
Director:  Brett Morgen
Cert 15

Crossfire Hurricane, the new documentary about the Rolling Stones, premiered at 300 cinemas worldwide including The Odeon, Preston.

It is difficult to find something new to say about a band which has probably featured in more books, magazine articles and TV programmes than any other.  But director Brett Morgen has managed it in this fasicinating trawl through the vaults of TV stations across the world.

Culled from TV and cinema footage, much of which is previously unseen or unshown since it was first broadcast, the film is both a treasure trove for hardened Stones followers and an education in the band’s history for the uninitiated.

The heavy bias towards the 1960s reveals the chaos of the early days of the Stones, when the band strummed Popeye The Sailor Man because the girls at their concerts screamed so loudly that the audience could not hear a note that was being played.  So too are the darker days of the group, including their descent into serious drug abuse in the late 1960s, with the death of guitarist and founder member Brian Jones touchingly remembered.

The horror of the Altamont concert, when an audience member was stabbed to death by the Hells Angels hired by the band to provide security at the gig, and guitarist Keith Richards' arrest for heroin possession by the Canadian police in 1976, are also examined in detail, giving a warts'n'all picture of the self styled greatest rock'n'roll band in the world.

The current day opinions of the band are voiced over the soundtrack, interspersed with the more youthful images of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards et al, and only at the very end - with an outtake from Martin Scorcese’s Shine A Light which featured the band in concert in 2008 - do we get to see the wrinkled old rockers in anything like their present state.

What carries the film along is the music, from Route 66 by way of I Can't Get No Satisfaction and Honky Tonk Women through to Miss You, with contemporary footage of the band performing numbers on TV shows that in some cases has not seen the light of day in more than 40 years.

Crossfire Hurricane will be available on DVD before Christmas.  Stones fans unable to make it to view the film on the big screen should start writing that letter to Santa now.

Greg Davies, Chorley Little Theatre, 6th October 2012

Greg Davies is a big man, as he was happy to admit to a packed Chorley Little Theatre when his The Back Of My Mum's Head show rolled into town.  Describing his body shape as resembling that carved by a four year old from a big piece of ham, he confided to the audience that the waistband in his underpants had snapped before he came on stage and that, whilst we might not witness the event, his underpants might fall down inside his jeans at some point in the evening.  Being so large had a number of other drawbacks, including the fact that he'd destroyed two toilets at home in one day.

Having shared his wardrobe malfunction secret, and engagingly got the audience on his side, this former teacher (perhaps best known for playing the teacher Mr Gilbert in The Inbetweeners) revealed his agenda for the evening, helpfully set out on a flip chart.  Davies did not go so far as to tell the crowd when they should laugh but such information would anyway have been superfluous, as they were laughing from start to finish.

The show was a well paced mix of story telling and audience interaction, with Davies' observational comedy taking random incidents in his life and weaving a narrative from them, such as the east London taxi driver who called Davies 'Big Bird' on picking up his fare and, having riled his passenger from the off, then got into an argument with him about what the ingredients of a pie are.  'It's pie, isn't it?'

Davies' top five involuntary noises, with the Pick of the Pops theme tune helpfully hummed by the audience, included a reference to a friend caught spying on his sunbathing neighbour by his monster of a wife.  Davies disguised 'Darren's' real identity to spare his embarrassment only to accidentally blurt out his real name, which is now known only to Davies and 250 theatregoers and staff.  Apart from the laugh it got, the mistake was ironic since Davies' theme was how adults need to censor what they're thinking in a way that children don't.

Davies' parents feature in much of his material, with his mother's concern about Davies being bitten by a fish whilst he was up a mountain so baffling to him that he produced a script so that the audience could help him act out the telephone conversation he had with her and his father.  His mother's 'it's not normal' refrain was reflected back by Davies to highlight how everyone says or thinks things that perhaps they shouldn't.  His friend Nicky's confession at a university Truth and Dare party that he'd fondled his sleeping grandmother's breasts was one example, whilst the hospital consultant asking Davies if there was going to be another series of The Inbetweeners whilst performing a cystoscopy on him was another.

Davies tells a story with a suitably conspiratorial air.  His family's camper van being followed through the American countryside at night with his parents terrified they are about to be killed only for Davies' then 12 year old sister to save the day by hanging out of the back door waving a plastic machine gun to scare their pursuers away has everyone on the edge of their seats, intrigued and amused.

The show concluded with the audience joining Davies on his guitar singing a song about a bonsai tree called 'I wish I was a bonsai tree'.  Music and comedy does not always work, but as a means of concluding a very funny set Davies succeeded in creating the sense of a camp fire singalong and making the audience feel they had been part of something special.

Davies' support was Ed Petrie, better known to younger readers as a presenter on BBC children's television shows.  Petrie suggested he had been asked rather at the last minute to accompany Davies on the tour, a statement which was supported by a short and slightly stumbling set that concluded in him forgetting his last joke.  The Chorley audience gave him a sympathetic hearing but the belly laughs were reserved for Davies.

Dexy's, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, Friday 21st September 2012

A Dexy’s concert attracts an interesting mixture of mainly older audience goers, reflecting the fact that the band that was once Dexy’s Midnight Runners were big in the 1980s.  Dexy’s have been through innumerable line up changes (Wikipedia lists 30 current or past band members) but at its heart is Kevin Rowland, backed by whichever set of musicians he has enlisted to provide the silky texture to underscore one of Britain's finest vocalists.

Rowland is a tortured musical genius who over the years has enjoyed a difficult relationship with critics, fellow band members and his wardrobe.  In response, he attracts a small but devout following that includes middle aged soul boys wearing flat caps, turned up jeans and leather soled shoes.

The show starts with new album One Day I’m Going To Soar.  Played in its entirety, it does not make things easy for the non believer.  Audiences wanting the greatest hits do not always appreciate having to sit through unfamiliar concept albums, as bands going back to The Who playing Tommy in the 1960s have found, and One Day is not a comfortable first listen.  With its spoken word sections and confessional tone, the album is far from uplifting material.  As Rowland says in new song It’s Okay John Joe ‘I don’t show much of myself in life, but in my music I tend to put it all in.’

Things are not helped by the vocal being slightly muffled in parts and a reverential atmosphere descends.  There is little attempt to build a rapport with the audience and conversation is restricted to a few thank yous, reflecting Rowland’s shyness.  But there are strong songs on the new album, and if there was any justice in the world the single She Got A Wiggle would be blaring out of radios everywhere.

The lack of audience interaction continues once the new album is dispensed with, with one of the band appearing dressed as a 1950s police sergeant for inter song banter with Rowland.  It’s a pre rehearsed device that could have been insensitive in the light of the shooting of the two Manchester police officers but as a means of setting up This Is What She’s Like and Tell Me When My Light Turns Green it works, with the latter number proving to be the highlight of the show.

Rowland finally plays one of his trio of instantly recognisable hits with world wide chart topper Eileen.  Sadly fellow number one single Geno, the eminently singalongable Jackie Wilson Said and other songs that got radio play in the band’s heyday do not get an airing.

Despite this, by the end most of the audience is on its feet, waving hands in the air and dancing in their seats.  The faithful have been rewarded.  With less emphasis on the new album and a better selection of songs from a strong back catalogue, the non believers might have been dancing from earlier on in the show too.

Danny Bhoy, Chorley Little Theatre, 23 September 2012

Some stand ups limber up for a gig by baiting the audience members in the front rows. Danny Bhoy eschews this approach for his Dear Epson show. Shuffling onstage in unbuttoned check shirt and jeans, and looking for all the world like a postgraduate student in a shared house who has got up late for breakfast, he initially comes across as a mild mannered kind of guy. But the sheaf of letters he has penned to various corporate giants, around which his show is constructed, reveals an angry inner Danny. He reads the letters whilst sat on a stool, giving an intimate and confessional air to the show.  And whilst his targets are mostly institutions everyone is familiar with, his reasons for attacking them are often personal. From BT To Oil of Olay, Danny has critical questions for them all, wanting to know why Epson printer ink costs as much drop for drop as vintage champagne and whether FIFA President Sepp Blatter took a bung when he awarded Qatar the 2022 World Cup. As a Scot, he's particularly perturbed by the latter. 'Knowing my luck, that's the only World Cup we'll qualify for in my lifetime.  The one you can't drink at.' Candle manufacturers Molton Brown get a letter asking how they can justify charging £36.50 for marketing a candle that is meant to conjure up a forest on the edge of midnight but which to Bhoy smells like wet grass.  His missive to British Airways, twelve years after their failure to let him reschedule a flight back from New York without having to pay for a new ticket, is a reflection on how a TransAtlantic love affair fizzled out.  He also reveals something of the young Danny, cutting pictures of New York out of brochures collected from the local travel agent to paste on his bedroom wall. The letters are an opportunity to lay some ghosts to rest.  Mr Dowel, the school woodwork teacher who never had the comic possibilities of his name exploited at the time, gets a letter. Rather satisfyingly, Bhoy tells him that whilst IKEA has rendered redundant what he learnt about joinery, he did get somewhere as a result of joking around in class. The show was well paced, and appreciated by the audience.  That it was a work in progress is evidenced by the fact that Bhoy had an idea on stage as to how his letter to Ticketmaster could be improved. 'Write that down, somebody.'  In the interests of furthering his comedy genius and without revealing the gag - Captcha, Danny, Captcha. The show concludes with a touching letter of advice from Bhoy to his 13 year old self. This final letter encapsulates the thoughful and thought provoking nature of a well written, beautifully executed and very funny show.

Is It Worth It? Radio 2 Documentary, 25 June 2012

Is it worth it?, the Radio 2 documentary about Clive Langer and Elvis Costello's glorious song Shipbuilding, had the feel of a programme idea both conceived and recorded down the pub.  Presenter Annie Nightingale sounds slightly the worse for wear throughout, and the show switched clumsily between discussing the song and talking about the Falklands conflict without ever really knitting Shipbuilding into the fabric of the times in the way that the producers presumably intended.

From the outset, it felt like they had an hour to fill and too little interview material to fill it, with Costello, Langer and Robert Wyatt, who recorded the first version of Shipbuilding, speaking eloquently but not at great length about the song's genesis.

After talking about how the song was first written and then offered to Robert Wyatt, the show is suddenly filled with reminiscences from Falklands veterans spliced with snippets of news broadcasts from the time - interesting stuff but not tied into people's awareness of the song.  Half an hour passes by before it tacks back into musical territory with Costello explaining how he signed up jazz trumpeter Chet Baker to play on his own version of the song and had to negotiate upwards Baker's fee for recording the session.

The documentary is worth hearing just for the chance to listen to Hue and Cry's tortuous version of Shipbuilding.  Had they rather than Wyatt been offered the song by Costello and Clive Langer, the likelihood is that it would not have become so revered and the subject of a Radio 2 documentary thirty years later.

Although worth a listen on iPlayer for Costello's reminiscences, this hour long documentary needed serious editing to get it down to 30 minutes.  Radio 4 does this kind of thing so much better.

Morrissey, Manchester Arena, 28 July 2012

When they erect statues to the heroes of modern Manchester, Sir Alex Ferguson is probably guaranteed a place in the pantheon and so, if results continue to go their way, is Manchester City's manager Roberto Mancini.  A spot is possibly also reserved for Morrissey, who carries the flame for his home city around the globe.  But whilst there may be 'no place like Hulme', he archly informed the audience at the Manchester arena that whilst he had recently been given the keys to the city of Tel Aviv, no such honour had yet been forthcoming from the good burghers of Manchester.

It may be that heroic status will be denied Morrissey because of his apparent willingness to grasp the  nettle of controversy whenever the opportunity arises.  His drummer's bass drums sported the Israeli national flag despite the mixed feelings some fans may have about him touring there.  If that were not provocative enough, the band were sporting 'We Hate William and Kate' t-shirts and the singer acerbically remarked that he hoped his audience had survived the 'moronic Diamond Jubilee'.

His audience of devotees lapped it up.  If Morrissey was not complaining about something, then that would suggest that their hero was not well.  As it was, he seemed to be in fine form, launching into You Have Killed Me and Every Day Is Like Sunday before moving on to I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris and Ouija Board, Oiuja Board.

If anything, the band were too muscular, with plenty of mid set guitar histrionics wailing over material that was unfamiliar and bludgeoning the crowd into submission.  The audience wanted to singalongaMoz but this was a request the self styled most curmudgeonly man in rock seemed disinclined to indulge.  For much of the middle of the set he belted out less well known songs, making for a leaden twenty minutes or so, whilst the big screen video on factory farming that accompanied Meat Is Murder did nothing to lighten the mood.

But finally Morrissey relented and opened his box of magic tricks. The fairy dust that he can sprinkle over any performance is, of course, selections from the Smiths' back catalogue.  After years of denial, these songs have increasingly featured in his concerts in recent years and the first to be unveiled was a pulsating How Soon Is Now, which ended on a throbbing synthesizer riff, to be followed later on by Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me before the show concluded with the massed choirs of the arena belting out the words to Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want and an encore of a vibrant Still Ill.

His legions of adoring fans will continue to follow him, but if Morrissey wants to attract gig goers other than those who merely wish to worship at his shrine, he needs to polish up that set list.

Russell Kane Chorley Little Theatre 20 May 2012

Russell Kane packed more into a sixty minute set at Chorley Little Theatre than most stand ups manage in two hours but, as he said himself, he does talk at twice the speed of most comics.  He was off to Blackpool for a charity gig after his Chorley appearance and the rate at which he delivers his act was like being on a seaside rollercoaster.


Barely pausing for breath during his Manscaping set he leapt about the stage in an athletic performance.  He mimicked everything from Olympic mum door knocking, which featured audience members Amanda from Chorley against a woman from North Carolina, to Lancastrians being poisoned by drinking Yorkshire Tea.  He also collapsed to the floor as he imagined Northern women crawling gratefully out of the bedroom and into the garden to hug a warm rock because their men won’t.


In truth, it wasn’t just Northern men who were the subject of his material but men in general.  He talked about his relationship with his father, how women deal with relationship crises better and mothers’ relationships with their sons.  He painted telling portraits of men getting grumpier as they get older, which for some reason led my partner to prod me quite hard, and how they find his material less funny as the evening wears on and their bladders get fuller.


Going to the loo during a Russell Kane set is a risky business, as you are likely to be teased as you leave the room and talked about when you're not in it.  When one woman admitted that the man next to her was her brother but that she didn't know him, Kane wondered if they'd been brought up at different foster homes.  Even the intelligent looking chap who tried to make himself inconspicuous by ducking down as he left the auditorium was not immune, with Kane imitating him wondering 'is he going to do anything with prime numbers?'  On learning that a teenage audience member he was talking to was called Cavan, Kane wondered if he'd been found in a cave and went off on a riff about how Lancashire children are discovered near the cliffs: 'And this is our daughter Igneous Bed.'


He finished with a story about the snobbery that he encountered on a first class train journey to Cambridge with a final twist that, although slightly predictable, was still funny.


Whilst there was plenty afterwards, there wasn't a lot of applause during Russell Kane's set - he just doesn't give his audience time to stop and reflect before firing off the next gag.


Trains also featured in the set of Kane's support, Iain Stirling, or more particularly getting locked in the toilet of one with a fellow passenger.  The story had the person next to me crying with laughter. Edinburgh born Stirling also neatly wove together stories about his Auntie Pam, a drunken punter at a Newcastle gig and his mate's posh girlfriend.  Stand ups at Chorley don’t always feature a support act, but Stirling was well worth his twenty five minute slot.


Together, Kane and Stirling were a winning combination and the best night's comedy at Chorley Little Theatre for a while.

Shappi Khorsandi, Chorley Little Theatre, 18 May 2012

Comedian Shappi Khorsandi was nearing the end of her act at a packed Chorley Little Theatre when a group of men trooped in from the bar carrying drinks. Her gentle chiding of their decision to put lager ahead of laughter – ‘you’re like characters from Viz’ - won her sympathetic applause from the audience, most of whom were enjoying the show. Chorley Little Theatre plays host to a lot of comedy, but a comedy club where the punters can wander freely to and from the bar while the stand up is in mid flow it is not.

In truth this was another coup for Chorley Little Theatre and a full house had turned out to see Ms Khorsandi, who wanted to know who’d heard her on Radio 4, seen her on Michael McIntyre or ‘just been dragged along?'

She hadn’t heard of Chorley - ‘I thought it was somewhere near London’ – and engaged with members of the audience throughout the auditorium to find out who was there with friends. When one woman explained that she’d met her friends through Rainbows which were 'little brownies' Khorsandi replied: 'I thought we'd got past all that.'

It was her first foray into tackling the casual racism she has encountered since arriving in the UK from Iran in the 1970s with her parents. As a child her brother responded to taunts of 'Oi, Gandhi! with 'Oi, Churchill!' and she recently criticised a national newspaper for allowing its dating site members to choose the skin colour of potential partners. When the man handling her complaint suggested a date she wrote back declining his offer: 'Too brown.'

Khorshandi handles the subjects of parenthood and moving to another country with aplomb. Her riff on the topic of siblings, the central theme of the show, started off as an affectionate portrait of her older brother Peyvand, but made some wry observations on the attitudes of parents towards growing numbers of children, and how the third child of the family gets neglected, a comment that resonated with my youngest-of-three-siblings partner.

Going through a divorce, she revelled in explicit details of her adult sex life, including a fling with a rock star, and some audience members will never be able to watch The Good Life on TV in the same light, but her gag about the Edinburgh Festival puppeteer who tried to put his hand up her skirt (‘you’re not at work now’) was the highlight of this section.

Her strongest and most distinctive material revolves around her family and her stories of arriving in England from her time in pre Revolutionary Iran, including watching children’s television: ‘We had the Magic Roundabout but Florence had to wear a hijab’. The Wombles was also different, Orinoco being blown to bits after the family were forced to serve as minesweepers in the Iran-Iraq war. Morph was the first non white person she saw on English television.

Her father was once the subject of an assassination plot and even this gets woven into the act. The 10 year old Khorsandi writes to Ayatollah Khomeini, apologising that she hasn’t written in Farsi but ‘I’m dyslexic in two languages’ and pleading that she loves her dad ‘but I love my brother more.’ He didn't write back. But when she later visits Iran she’s pleased to see that on the signed execution warrant the Ayatollah had underlined that the children should not be harmed.

Other vignettes included her auntie visiting England and, after experiencing ten years of the Iran-Iraq war in a bomb shelter, going out on Bonfire Night and throwing herself to the floor at the first sound of fireworks.

At the conclusion of a ninety minute set, she appeared genuinely pleased at the reception she’d received. ‘You're nice, Chorley,’ she said, and seemed to mean it. A shame those members of the audience who chose to go to the bar couldn't have paid her the same respect.

Elvis Costello - Manchester Apollo - 12 May 2012

Like a fine wine Elvis Costello justs get better with age. That's the only sensible conclusion anyone who witnessed his two and a half hour show at the Manchester Apollo could reach. Bringing his Spectacular Spinning Songbook tour to town after an extended 2011 US tour, Costello (as his alter ego Napoleon Dynamite) arrived with his backing band the Imposters, a big wheel containing a selection of 40 songs or song themes and a go-go dancer in black fishnet stockings and red PVC high heeled boots.  Add to that an encyclopaedic musical knowledge, a full house of Costello fans and a chart history stretching back 35 years, and the audience were in for a treat. From the opening bars of Hope You're Happy Now through to Pump It Up, Costello roamed through his back catalogue via Cilla Black and Charles Aznavour's She, and even managed to throw in a version of the Rolling Stones' Out Of Time.  The big difference between this and most shows you'll pay good money to see is that the set list hadn't been typed out and gaffer taped to the mic stand beforehand. Instead audience members were invited up on stage by Costello's gorgeous female assistant to spin the wheel, with the point at which it stopped determining which songs the band tackled.  "Where it stops nobody knows", said Costello, but the wheel picked out hit after hit from Alison to Oliver's Army. With an ethusiastic and energy that would put entertainers half his age to shame (to call him a mere musician or singer/songwriter would be to understate the role he undertakes each night as emcee cum ringmaster in curating the show), Costello prowls the stage like a cross between Jerry Springer and a black panther, wisecracking as he goes and descending into the audience to sing some of the numbers, even appearing in the balcony. At one point, Costello span the wheel himself and artificially stopped it in order to land on the theme 'Joanna' ("well if you can't cheat in Manchester, where can you?") enabling keyboard impresario Steve Naive to launch into a couple of songs.  A personal highlight was a joyous Talking In The Dark, but in a set of this length there were several high points. Anyone returning to Costello's career after 35 years will be surprised to see the angry young man of My Aim Is True having mellowed into a vaudevillian entertainer who so obviously enjoys entertaining his audience.  But it didn't seem incongruous that he could play Tramp The Dirt Down (which envisages the day that a former prime minister is finally buried) and yet have his audience leave at the end of the evening to Morecambe & Wise's Bring Me Sunshine.  This was rock'n'roll as wholesome family entertainment with something for everyone.  Long may the Spectacular Spinning Songbook continue to revolve.

Mark Steel, Chorley Little Theatre, 21 April 2012

Chorley Little Theatre was predictably sold out for Mark Steel's In Town tour when it, er, hit town.  Steel is a stalwart on the comedy circuit with a left wing credibility that would make Ken Livingstone blush.  However on this tour he played down the socialism to highlight some of Britain's lesser known towns with accompanying slideshow and following his successful Radio 4 series on this theme. The audience was treated to tales about the Get Carter car park in Gateshead and a drunken Education Minister on the Isle of Man through to Walsall's hippo (don't rush). Steel mused on the perils of delivering a tailor made show to a local audience: 'As I was leaving Winchester, a chap said to me "Good job you were playing Winchester, seeing as how you have such a lot of Winchester material in your set".' Steel had not been to Chorley before.  Prior to arriving on stage he spent the day getting to know the town, learning about Vimto and the history of unrest from two centuries before.  He had also done some exploring.  'I like how all the shops are closed.  Stops people getting in your way.'  A highlight was wondering why the Mormons chose to build their UK church in Chorley.  When the audience volunteered that the founder of the Pilgrim Fathers was a local he went off on a riff about Chorley as the focal point of all religions.  'I suppose Jesus was from round here?' He also spent part of his afternoon watching Chorley FC: 'I was late.  The gates were locked, to prevent a huge queue of people from getting in' and hoped that the Magpies might get promotion to a more attractively named division than the Evostik Premier, 'like the Superglue League.' It was an instructive evening for Steel, who learnt that what differentiates Chorley cakes from Eccles cakes is that they're made from short crust pastry.  Aside from the local jokes, he also reflected on hitting 50, having a grumpy teenage son and the perils of cycling.  With a show weighing in at over two and a half hours, he might have kept going had a woman on the front row not pointed out that she had missed the last bus home to Astley Village.  'Where Cromwell lost his shoe,' said Steel.  He had done his homework, and his audience went home entertained and educated.

Robin Ince, Chorley Little Theatre, 19 April 2012

Thanks to Robin Ince I'll be drinking black coffee tomorrow morning.  Not because I was put off drinking milk by his sketch asking how many audience members would eat something made from human breast milk (more than in Wolverhampton, apparently, and the highest number so far on his Happiness Through Science tour) but because I came away from his gig at Chorley Little Theatre with a reading list going round in my head running from Carl Sagan to Noam Chomsky and Stephen Weinberg by way of Erwin Schrodinger's cat.  The mental cataloguing of the names of three Nobel Prize winning physicists caused me to forget on the drive home that I needed to buy milk for breakfast. This show was as far from the Jim Davidson branch of stand up comedy as it is possible to get with dark matter, stellar nurseries and the Large Hadron Collider all thrown into the mix.  Add a dash of Laurel and Hardy and a pinch of Melanie Phillips baiting (she of the Daily Mail) and you begin to get a flavour of what Robin Ince's act is all about.  Or perhaps not. Described as a 'militant atheist', although not a label he accepts, Ince brought his two hour show to a two thirds full theatre comprised largely of an older audience no doubt attracted by his Radio 4 programme The Infinite Monkey Cage with Dr Brian Cox.  The programme's title attracted complaints two months before the show was written, complainants to the BBC apparently not understanding the theory that an infinite number of monkeys given an infinite number of typewriters could produce the works of Shakespeare.  'Ninety typewriters,' suggested Ince, 'and you'll get a Dan Brown.' I can't ruin Robin Ince's act by reproducing his material word for word because I couldn't keep up with the torrent of ideas pouring from the stage, and because I'm not a scientist. Neither is Ince, but his enthusiasm for his subject, whether it's explaining the reptilian brain or why he doesn't believe Mr Potato Head would stop to offer Barbie a lift in Toy Story 2, meant that two hours flew by. It's a very rare stand up gig indeed that ends with the comic reading a passage from a book written by US physicist and Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman about the death of his wife.  Ince finished by saying 'I've stolen two hours of your life, Chorley, and you're not getting it back!'. I for one was happy to be robbed.

Mike Gunn and Sean Collins

Mike Gunn & Sean Collins
Chorley Little Theatre
3rd February 2012

Chorley Little Theatre is becoming a regular stopping off point on the Northern comedy circuit, punching above its weight by attracting household names such as Jeremy Hardy and Jack Dee, whose recently announced gig sold out in two hours.

Sadly the venue was a long way from being full for Mike Gunn and Sean Collins, which can only be described as a missed opportunity for Chorley comedy fans who decided to pass on this one. Not that it put the performers off. Comedians do like to make audience members the butt of their humour and in a less than half full theatre it's like shooting fish in a barrel. In Chorley the fish were leaping out of the barrel with targets painted on their bodies, with one man admitting to taping old episodes of Ground Force so that he can ogle Charlie Dimmock.

Gunn could hardly miss when presented with that target, and maybe it's the readiness of Chorley stand up fans to be humiliated that makes the venue such a hit with comedians. Gunn is a Londoner with a dry delivery somewhat reminiscent of Jo Brand and the looks of one time 'They Think It's All Over' regular Lee Hurst. Admitting he is 'married to a ginge', he hopes his children get their genes from him on the basis that it would be better to have no rather than red hair.

Unusually, they played this as a two hander, with Collins warming up for Gunn in the first half and Gunn returning the favour at the start of the second before both men appeared on stage for the last 25 minutes. Collins is a reflective Canadian who has lived in the UK for eight years and loves how we expect our train service to be terrible whereas querying if his train might be late in Germany led to the rail officials thinking he was a terrorist with some prior knowledge of a delay. He’d done his research on Chorley and 'there's no other night life, right?' His second half set was performed sat on a stool a la Dave Allen.

The show ended with them on stage together playing comedy tag, with one cracking a gag before handing the topic over to the other, a format they said they enjoyed. This was less successful than each on their own, partly because neither man had the chance to get into the flow of things before it was time to hand the baton back.

All in all, a good night's comedy. A riff on bingo and paedophilia and some advice from Collins on how to get a girlfriend in Canada using a bear trap ('after 3 or 4 days stuck in that they'll do anything you want just to get out') closed the show and left the audience happy. Just a shame there wasn't more of one.