2013 with the Wedding Present

I saw quite a few bands in 2013.  And I saw one particular band quite a few times.  The Wedding Present.

It started with Brighton. We'd been twice before to David Gedge's At The Edge Of The Sea festival, but I wasn't convinced we should go again.  'They're playing two nights,' I said, 'but on the first night they're playing George Best all the way through, which isn't my favourite Pressies' album, and then they're doing Hit Parade, and you know I don't like bands playing an album all the way through as a format.  It takes away any element of surprise.'

I had been to see Bruce Springsteen at Wembley Stadium in June on the night he decided to play Darkness On The Edge Of Town - an album I'm not familiar with - in its entirety.  I found the gig correspondingly dull as a result.  (I recognise that of the 60,000 people at that gig, 59,999 probably wouldn't agree with my description of the gig as 'dull', and I hasten to add that I'd seen Bruce play the Etihad the previous year and enjoyed it immensely).

However, come the end of August Kate and I were in Brighton for the annual (and now two day) celebration of all things Wedding Present.

The band played on Saturday and Sunday, running through George Best on the first night and the twelve consecutive chart placed singles from 1992 that made up the Hit Parade album on the following night, and were on fine form as always.

The venue, Concorde 2, has very few places to sit down which makes the festival nature of the event - running for seven hours each day - something of an endurance test for someone of my advancing years.  So between the opening act (Cinerama on both days, playing sides one and two of their album Va Va Voom) and the Pressies we availed ourselves of Brighton beach, where we went and laid on the pebbles to watch the sun start to go down before the main event of the evening.

When we got home, the idea of going to see the Pressies on their November UK tour seemed like a good idea. Dusting off The Hit Parade for the first time in ages to listen to it anew had persuaded me that seeing the band again a couple of times more would be a good thing.

'And,' I said, 'they're playing Paris and then two gigs in Lille. Do you fancy going to see them three times in 36 hours?'

Kate, despite firmly rebutting any labelling of her as a Wedding Present obsessive, did.

So the flight to Paris and the trains and hotels were booked.  'But it's your job to sort the tickets for the gigs,' she said.  Which was easier said than done. My schoolboy French was not sufficient to enable me to navitage the two venues' websites, and with no English language website available, I emailed the band's record label Scopitones for help.  Acknowledging the difficulty in getting tickets for European gigs Jessica, David's girlfriend, kindly arranged to put us on the guest list for Paris and Lille. 'And you do know the band are playing a matinee in Lille?'

The Paris gig was at La Maroquinerie, a small club which online reviews of other bands suggested had great views and a great sound.  We watched from the first floor balcony as the band, coming to the end of the continental leg of their tour, played a not dissimilar set to what we'd witnessed in Brighton.  The gig, aided by a great venue, was a good one.

Afterwards, we spoke to Jessica who said that the band would be playing a toned down set for the matinee in Lille the next day and that they'd be on stage at 4pm.

From Paris next morning we went by train, arriving in a very wet Lille around lunchtime.  After a quick bite to eat, and having scouted out the location of the venue on arrival, we headed down to L'Aeronef for the first of two planned gigs that day.

On arrival at the venue the signs were not promising.  Two separate adults were leading their young children up the metal staircase to what we thought was the venue, which looked shut.  Arriving at the rear entrance we could see several more adults with assorted children ranging from toddlers to kids up to perhaps eight years of age.  We seemed to be in the wrong place.

The woman at the door was not encouraging.

'We've come for the Wedding Present gig,' I said.

'Come back this evening,' she replied. 'At 8 o'clock.'

'We've come for the matinee,' I said.

'The Wedding Present are this evening,' she said firmly. 'There is a matinee, but you cannot come in.'

'But we're on the guest list,' I protested.  At this, she relented and led us to the box office where she issued us with two tickets.

Waiting in the lobby, where I managed to spend a couple of Euros on a handily placed Rollng Stones pinball machine, we weree still not sure we were in the right place.  We'd come to see a rock band but everyone else had small children with them and looked as though they were going to a kids' birthday party.

But the venue duly opened the doors to the main arena and we trooped in along with the parents and their many offspring to be greeted by the sight of Tilly on the Pressies' merchandise stall, the first familiar face and the first clear indication that we were definitely in the right place.

What followed was one of the most bizarre gigs I've been to - the Wedding Present coming onstage, plugging in their instruments and launching into a 25 minute set in front of an audience of adults and small children sat cross legged as though they were all back at school.  Which in the case of some of the audience members would have been less than 48 hours before.

The evening performance - for grown ups - was also low key, with no mosh pit and the restrained audience standing well back from the band.  This was no fault of the band, but the French crowd were quite stand offish.  Needless to say, we took advantage of the crowd's diffidence to stand on the front row, and being able to watch the Pressies from close quarters without being sent flying by an overweight fiftysomething (and I write this as an overweight fiftysomething myself) was a rare delight.

We arrived back in the UK and immediately began planning our trips around the UK.  By the time Wolverhampton rolled around, the enormity of what we'd signed up to began to hit me.  Wolverhampton on a Tuesday night would be followed by Leeds, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Liverpool. Five gigs in eight days.  Okay, the band were following the same schedule but we were fitting the gigs in around our day jobs, with a half day's leave taken on Friday to allow us time to get up to Glasgow the only concession to the itinerary we had set ourselves.

Wolverhampton was wet, with the rain sheeting down.  The venue, it has to be said, wasn't great, and we were at the back of the crowd where the chattering classes gather and where the sound wasn't as crisp as you might expect.  Never a great spot to be.

Leeds two days later was much better.  The venue was bigger and a larger crowd made for a cracking atmosphere.  The Pressies almost always sell out what is their home town gig and the O2 Academy, with its large dance floor and clear sight lines, is a great place to witness a rock band in full flight.

The following evening we were in Glasgow.  Another O2 Academy and another great venue.  The band were extremely loud and the crowd raucous.  Talking to guitarist Patrick Alexander, drummer Charles Layton and bassist Katharine Wallinger afterwards we were probably less than coherent as we babbled enthusiastically to them about how much we'd enjoyed the performance.

We would have gone to see the band in Aberdeen (indeed, we had tickets and I had booked a hotel in Aberdeen) but a chance conversation with Tilly on the merchandise stall brought home to me the fact that the Aberdeen gig was on Sunday. (I had booked the hotel for Saturday) and that I had screwed up.  Since I had to be at work on Monday afternoon, we were going to have to give The Lemon Tree a miss. Fortunately, I found someone on Twitter who could make use of the tickets so they didn't go to waste.

The following Tuesday saw us, and the band, in Liverpool.  Another O2 Academy gig, with the Pressies playing upstairs while The Cult took up occupation of the larger downstairs space.

Epic Studios in Norwich was the venue for our penultimate gig of the year.  The former home of Anglia TV and where Sale of the Century, hosted by Nicholas Parsons, was filmed, the cameras were also on for this gig and streamed on t'Internet for anyone who cared to part with £5 for the privilege.  The set was more of a greatest hits, with nothing from the Hit Parade, and the band were once again excellent, although David fluffed the intro to closing number End Credits by forgetting the lyrics, forcing the band to restart the song.

And, finally for us and the band, Leeds again at the Brudenell Social Club with a raucous crowd, a couple of enthusiastic bouncers and Gedgey getting banged in the mouth by a stray microphone. 'I'll bring a gum shield next time,' he said.

So that's it for 2013.  Kate and I saw 11 performances by The Wedding Present, and two by Cinerama.  Quite a haul given that we had no firm plans to go and see the band come the end of July.

Seeing the band play their matinee gig in Lille and witnessing the obvious delight of the band at the enthusiasm of some of the younger members of the audience was a highlight.  As was the whole adventure of seeing the band several times over.

And will we be going to see The Wedding Present in 2014?  Well Athens is already pencilled in the diary....

Black Sabbath, Phones 4 Us Arena, Manchester, 18 December 2013

By rights two members of Black Sabbath shouldn't be on stage in Manchester on the grounds that they shouldn't still be alive. Guitarist Tony Iommi is being treated for lymphoma, which would lead lesser mortals to take an extended sickie at the very least while lead singer Ozzy Osbourne's drug and drink travails, well documented in the red tops and in wife Sharon's regular autobiographies, would have done for anyone without the constitution of a team of oxen.

But here they are, clad in black and grinning broadly, and along with bassist Geezer Butler and drafted in drummer Tommy Clufetos are firing up their amplifiers to 11 and turning the clock back to 1972.

From the opening siren of War Pigs through to the encore Paranoid (Ozzy rushing back on stage having hidden behind the speaker stack encouraging the audience to clap louder - 'come on you f*****s') the band that can be argued to have invented heavy metal grind out the riffs of classic song after classic song. Sabbath have rarely troubled the singles chart, but their repertoire draws heavily on their first four albums with three songs from this year's album chart topping '13' (Age of Reason, End of the Beginning and God is Dead) thrown in for good measure. The Sabbath sound has come full circle as the newer songs could easily have been written in the band's early days, so smoothly do they drop into the set. Anyone expecting Black Sabbath to start doing dub step or Miley Cyrus covers is going to be severely disappointed.

Several audience members appear to be paying their own personal tributes to an off the wagon Ozzy, and are significantly the worse for wear before the band come on. Ozzy, of course, has gone from being a shoeless petty thief from Aston, Birmingham to a national treasure singing at Buckingham Palace. You are unlikely to rush out and buy an Ozzy Osbourne keep fit DVD based on the physical shape he is in these days but there is no doubting the power of the voice or his enthusiasm at being on stage.

Geezer Butler, the band's main lyricist, performs a sterling job on bass and Clufetos plays an energetic stop start drum solo that, accompanied by a spectacular light show, builds the suspense before the band launch into the final stretch of the set.

The heart of the Black Sabbath engine though is Tony Iommi, in blue tinted specs and black leather, strolling up and down the side of the stage with a benign smile on his face and guitar in hand, effortlessly emitting arena shaking riffs without breaking sweat.

Heavy metal has its detractors but Black Sabbbath must be doing something right. The band are getting on but the audience, ranging from teenagers to late middle aged bikers, reflects a youthful demographic, demonstrating heavy metal's multi generational appeal and suggesting that as long as the band that invented it can keep going they'll continue to sell out big venues. Long live Sabbath!

The Beatles, Hammersmith Odeon, December 1964

It was Christmas 1964. I was four years old. My Dad wasn't into music but my mum - a big Guy Mitchell fan - was still only 24 when the Beatles emerged and so she listened to them and wanted someone to go with when she got tickets. So it was that I dutifully boarded a train to London to see a department store Santa and, after visiting Santa's grotto and collecting my neatly wrapped present, Mum took me on to the Hammersmith Odeon to see The Beatles' Christmas Show 1964, compered by Jimmy Savile.

I heard The Beatles that evening, but my memory is not of the music. I don't remember what John and Paul said, or whether you could hear them over the screams of the audience. Or indeed if the audience was screaming.What I remember is opening my present from Santa and removing the wrapping paper to find that I'd got a set of wooden skittles and balls. And then dropping one of the balls on the floor where it promptly rolled away on the sloping auditorium floor to the stage, never to be seen again.  I didn't understand then why the ball couldn't be retrieved.  I do now.

The Wedding Present, O2 Academy, Liverpool, 29 October 2013

The Wedding Present's Hit Parade Tour ends on Friday in London, so you've got just three more opportunities to catch the band replaying their Elvis Presley-matching cascade of a hit single every month during 1992. From the opening chords of Blue Eyes through to the haunting chorus of No Christmas, the audience in Liverpool were reminded of why the charts back then were so much more interesting than they are now. Well perhaps that's nostalgia, but if you're going to get all nostalgic why not do so in the company of a great band playing loud in a small venue? The Hit Parade songs were bookended by 9 or 10 others from the band's 'extensive repertoire', as main man David Gedge introduced them. Whether it's the industrial thunder of Interstate 5 with which the band start the show, the spirit lifting 524 Fidelio with bassist Katharine Wallinger on backing vocals or the squalling guitar of Patrick Alexander on new single Two Bridges there are a range of newer songs for fans to nod along to. But it is Brassneck and set closer My Favourite Dress that get the mosh pit of 50 somethings bouncing around. The band are held together by the energetic Charles Layton on drums, and David Gedge has a line in patter that other front men would do well to study. The only sombre note (aside from the fact that most Wedding Present songs are bitter sweet lyrically) is when Gedge says a few words in tribute to Lou Reed and then plays Reed's She's My Best Friend. By the end of the pulsating 90 minute show the crowd have had their fill, which is just as well since the Wedding Present don't do encores.

My top five gigs of 2013

A bit previous, as Arfur Daley would say, since we're only in October but here we go:

5.  The Wedding Present, Lille, 13 October 2013

This was a small club gig and there was no mosh pit (it would never happen back home in Blighty) but the Pressies knocked out a tidy 90 minute set with David Gedge throwing the shapes and dragging from his guitar the feedback that seasoned followers of the band have come to expect.  The reputation of the band as jingly jangly indie heroes doesn't pay heed to the monstrous amounts of distortion that they've been producing for 20 odd years, the kind of noise you'd expect to hear at a ....

4.  Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Newcastle, 10 June 2013

concert.  Apparently people were walking out of this and other gigs on Young's 2013 European tour.  More fool them, I say.  Old Neil was on top form, and if you came expecting peace, love, incense sticks and an acoustic ramble through Neil's gentler back catalogue then you really should have listened to his last album, Psychedelic Pill, before buying your tickets.  Or listened to any Crazy Horse album from the last 40 plus years, really.

3.  Elvis Costello & The Imposters, Manchester, 14 June 2013

My ears could still have been ringing from the Neil Young & Crazy Horse concert of four days before, but the sonic assault with which Elvis targeted his audience towards the end of his set was like a short circuit on a human juke box with seven (count 'em) of his early gems fired off one after the other. Throw in Elvis as the Master of Ceremonies wisecracking and gladhanding his audience and you had the Royal Variety Show, thankfully without the Royals.  The audience were slightly less engaged at....

2.   The Wedding Present, Lille, 13 October 2013 (matinee)

but what this gig lacked in atmosphere it made up for in sheer charm with the band playing a seven song 25 minute set with turned down amplifiers and toned down lyrics for an audience of pre school kids and their parents.  I've seen the Pressies over 20 times now, but this gig will live in the memory a long time.  And talking of kids with their parents....

1. The Rolling Stones, Hyde Park, 6 July 2013

The sun was beating down, the son was with me and happy to melt in the heat for a few hours so that we had a good spot when the band came on, and the Stones showed how they earned their reputation as the greatest rock'n'roll band in the world by dipping into their treasure chest of hits and putting on the kind of event that few (ok, no one) can match when it comes to entertaining a big, inter-generational crowd.  My gig of the year (so far!).

The Wedding Present, L'Aeronef, Lille

I'm not very tall. Five eight is what I claim, although some of my nearest and dearest dispute this.  Still, it's not often I get to go to a gig and can see over the heads of most of the audience.  But I managed it at this Wedding Present gig, which was put on at L'Aeronef in Lille at a time when some musicians would only just be getting out of bed. It must be every rock star's dream. Get your audience while they're young and they'll grow up with you, buying your records throughout your career. The Wedding Present went one further, playing an afternoon matinee of seven songs to an audience of children ranging in age from 2 to 10, plus their mums and dads.  The guitars weren't turned up to 11, the lyrics were altered ('sex was all you needed' in set opener Interstate 5 became 'fun was all you needed') and there was no mosh pit, but this was still a gig, albeit with pint sized patrons. Mainman David Gedge still threw his rock star poses, a seven year old stood up and filmed a whole song on his mum's iPhone and Freres Jacques didn't make it into the set. Even better, no one tried to impress their girlfriend by talking all the way or managed to start a fight by spilling their pint over their neighbour. Instead the audience of school age children was treated to California, Ringway to Seatac and Montreal, with a gorgeously understated My Favourite Dress to finish.  The band appeared to be having fun, with Gedge exchanging grins with drummer Charlie Layton, and there were no tantrums on or off stage, although one young audience member did have to be carried out to use the toilet halfway through the second number.  'Hope to see you again one day,' said David to his new young fans, a clutch of whom were gathered around the monitors at the front of the stage.  If this is the future of rock and roll, it has a long life ahead.

Alistair McGowan, Chorley Little Theatre, 21 September 2013

Alistair McGowan is probably the most famous impressionist in the UK, so for him to be playing Chorley Little Theatre was some coup.  And, he acknowledged, he wasn't expecting it to be quite so 'little'.  Small it may be, but it was packed out with a largely middle aged audience for his 'Not Just A Pretty Voice' tour.

His hour and three quarter act centres upon a run through the wide repertoire of famous and not so famous voices that he mimics, providing a smorgasbord of characters from TV and the world of celebrity from panel shows to Dad's Army.

As a former voice of Spitting Image McGowan has had many years' experience of mastering some voices, but what was particularly interesting was just how varied a range of people he chooses to imitate.  Whether it's up and coming comics who have appeared on Dave a few times (some of which references were admittedly lost on me) or Sky Sports' Jeff Stelling, McGowan is clearly a keen student of the media.

And McGowan is clearly a clever man, as his impression of Roger Federer giving a post match interview in three languages demonstrates.

Despite his obvious talent, however, the strongest material was the more personal storytelling such as his tale explaining what passed for in car entertainment when he was a child going on holiday with his family.  I would have preferred more of this to the Diane Abbott or Andrew Neill impressions and a pretty laboured Michael Portillo gag.

More up to date political satire would also have added spice, but the fact that no Cameron or Clegg impressions feature in McGowan's act speaks volumes about their lack of presence and their indistinguishability as politicians. Instead William Hague, whose thick Yorkshire brogue is clearly a godsend to an impressionist, and Ed Miliband were neatly parodied.

McGowan's best imitations were of comedians Frank Skinner, John Bishop, Alan Carr and Dara O'Briain.  With their mannerisms also neatly captured, it was possible to believe that they and not McGowan were strutting the boards of Chorley Little Theatre.

So a great night's entertainment in the company of almost 50 household names, and all for the price of a curry and a pint.

The Rolling Stones, Hyde Park, 6 July 2013

Hyde Park was basking in a glorious evening's sunshine and when the Rolling Stones' lead singer Mick Jagger suggested that London in summer was the best place in the world to be, few in the 65,000 strong crowd assembled to see the band return to play the central London park 44 years after their celebrated free concert were inclined to disagree.

From the opening riff of Start Me Up through to the closing bars of ( I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, the crowd sang along and if Jagger had to glance occasionally at his autocue to remember the words of some of the most famous songs in the rock canon the faithful gathered at his feet had no such need.

Like their O2 gigs last year, this and the following Saturday's Hyde Park gig were criticised for the price of the tickets but both sold out in minutes and from the number and variety (and vintage) of tee shirts on display, the concert goers gathered in central London were afficiandos who would have come to see the band whatever the cost.

That tickets for this gig started at £99 says more about the business model for rock music than it does about the avarice of the Stones. Musicians don't make much money from selling their music any more and ticket sales from concerts is the big revenue stream.

Not that the Stones had skimped on staging.  The set was bedecked with two large oak trees from which were hung the speaker stacks, slightly obscuring the giant video screens. But a central walkway meant that at different times Mick, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood advanced into the masses and gave the crowd packed in at the front (some of whom had queued overnight to get in) a close look at the nearest thing Britain has to rock royalty.

As a seasoned Stones watcher I have a couple of gripes. The high resolution big screen revealed Mick to be glancing at the autocue on a far too frequent basis and you wonder if he really struggles that much to remember the lyrics.  And I wouldn't have played All Down The Line (my preference in the fan vote was for the Temptations cover Just My Imagination, which they stripped down and rebuilt as their own on Some Girls). But that's democracy for you.

I saw Springsteen play at Wembley Stadium a few weeks ago and was distinctly underwhelmed by his choice of material. And, let's face it, a band that can release Gimme Shelter (with Keith in thunderous form), Sympathy for the Devil (with the audience 'woo-wooing' along) and  You Can't Always Get What You Want (with full choral backing) towards the tail end of a set that is packed with a clutch of memorable chart topping singles (Paint It Black, Brown Sugar, Honky Tonk Women, It's Only Rock'n'Roll, Miss You, Tumblin' Dice and Jumping Jack Flash) is always going to have the edge when it comes to killer songs.

The Stones playing Hyde Park was a celebration of a band that has been a part of people's lives for over 50 years.  The grey hair, the wrinkles and the occasional falling out between friends tells the story of the band but also most of the 65,000 too.  That's why their fans love them and why they were, on Saturday night, once again the greatest rock'n'roll band in the world.

Elvis Costello and the Imposters, Blackpool Opera House, 13 June 2013 and Manchester Apollo, 14 June 2013

Elvis Costello brought his Spinning Songbook tour to the North West with performances in Blackpool and Manchester.

A measure of the powers of Costello and his backing band the Imposters is that they played over 25 songs each night and yet fewer than a dozen songs were performed on both.  The reason? The spinning songbook chooses much of the set.

The spinning songbook is a large and garishly coloured wheel divided into small slices on which are scribed various Costello favourites and which sits stage left. Stage right is a small bar and an energetic and spangly costumed go-go dancer.

This is not your average rock gig.  After an opening salvo from the band, Costello swaps his fedora for a top hat and assumes the persona of Napoleon Dynamite (Lord Napoleon in Manchester) inviting members of the audience up on stage to spin the wheel. He cracks the jokes while they see whether a song title or a theme such as Love (giving the band some leeway to choose what they might perform) is where the wheel stops. So we get Riot Act as the fourth number in Blackpool and Tokyo Storm Warning in Manchester.

But the wheel doesn't make all the choices. In Blackpool a young woman brought on stage says that her favourite song isn't displayed and  Elvis, guessing her musical tastes based on her age, cracks that they can't play a Rhianna song, 'well, only one or two'.  But she wants Gram Parsons' How Much I Lied and, whilst it might not have been rehearsed beforehand, the band duly oblige. In Manchester, a 50 year old celebrating his birthday not only gets  Happy Birthday  sung by the audience and Costello but his request for Battered Old Bird, another song not on the wheel and not rehearsed.

The Blackpool highlight is the anti Thatcher song Tramp The Dirt Down, delivered with passion as Costello links recollections of his father's death to that of the late prime minister. His musician father used to play the working men's clubs 'when there were still working men in the north'.  The collective lump in the throat of the audience was a moment of raw emotion.

In Manchester, the stand out section of the show was a rip roaring run through the back catalogue with Oliver's Army, I Don't Want To Go To Chelsea, Pump It Up, The Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes, Mystery Dance, Radio Radio and What's So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding fired off one after another in a breathtaking encore that left the audience baying for more.

The Spinning Songbook tour is evidence that one of Britain's finest songwriters and performers is on top of his game. Whether it's romantically serenading the audience with Charles Aznavour's She or political understatement with Shipbuilding, Costello and his band provide two and a half hours of solid entertainment. Long may the spinning songbook continue to spin.

Neil Young, Newcastle Metro Arena, 10 June 2013

You sort of know what you're going to get at a Crazy Horse gig. Full on rock and roll at maximum volume. Classic songs. Neil Young leading the band like a man possessed.

But you don't necessarily anticipate the band and road crew shuffling on before the show starts to sing God Save The Queen in front of a huge Union Jack. Or a woman randomly wandering onto the stage mid set  with a violin case and looking as though she might join in with the band before wandering off again two minutes later.

Welcome to Neil's world, where he can get away with ideas in front of several thousand paying punters that a pair of Japanese conceptual artists would struggle to attract a handful of people to watch.

Also, feedback is back. Reprising the concept of his Rust Never Sleeps tour of the 1970s, Young and the band perform in front of huge mock amplifiers and coax every squeal and shriek of noise they can from their equipment.

Featuring a hefty slice of last year's Psychedelic Pill album and one new song, Young leads off with Love And Only Love and then Powderfinger before taking a breather mid set with delicate and unaccompanied versions of Comes A Time and Blowin' In The Wind, giving the latter the reverential treatment that the song's author now  seems incapable of.

Bob Dylan is notoriously unpredictable as a live act in terms of whether you will feel you have got your money's worth. As Neil Young finished his set with Hey Hey My My (Into The Black) and Rocking In The Free World, there was no question as to whether the punters had got value. Crazy Horse had been on stage for two and a half hours and the crowd were still baying for more.

Like the Rolling Stones and other acts that broke through in the 1960s, time will eventually catch up with Neil Young, but there was no evidence of age or any decline in his passion on stage in Newcastle. There's still a handful of tickets left for Neil Young's visit to the Echo Arena in Liverpool in August. It's a chance to see a true rock legend at the height of his powers while you still can. I've got my ticket already.

Marcus Brigstocke, Chorley Little Theatre, 11 April 2013

Marcus Brigstocke's Brig Society tour came to Chorley and played to a full house.  Politics was the overriding theme for the evening. Brigstocke set his stall out in the opening minutes with a few jokes about Margaret Thatcher that, despite the nearness of her death, were acerbic without bordering on the tasteless. 

The central concept of Brigstocke's two and a quarter hour show was a critique of David Cameron's vision of a Big Society, with members of the Chorley Little Theatre audience appointed as ministers for Education, Health and Transport and free to make up policies of their own. The truck driver given the transport brief duly abolished people who hog the middle lane, proposing that machine guns be fitted to the front of lorries in order to remove offending vehicles in the centre of the motorway.

Brigstocke demonstrated he could easily have been a politician. Not only did he go to a posh school and have a very good line in appearing to talk down to people but he also made a splendid fist of explaining how the banking crisis occurred. His use of audience participation to illustrate how the banks lent other people's money to those that couldn't afford to repay was as clear as anything the BBC's Robert Peston might come up with, and in the process he emptied the audience's pockets of more than £50. His analogy of the Greeks staying in the Euro being like gatecrashing a German run nightclub and being unable to keep up with the music also illustrated his ability to extract a gag out of unpromising material.

George Osborne (net worth £4m) and David Cameron (£30m) were targets of his ire for pursuing the Government's economics policy, but so too was Jimmy Carr for the tax avoidance measures he employed and made headlines with last year.

Some of what Brigstocke does is hardly comedy at all. His rant against The Sun ('why does anybody still buy it? They hacked into a dead girl's phone') could be that of a left wing politician, and his amusing comments about UKIP leader Nigel Farage speared the pretensions of the UKIP leader to be treated as a serious politician more effectively than anything being said by the mainstream party leaders. Proving Brigstocke is also no fan of Labour Ed Miliband was dismissed with a withering one liner about his appearance.

But it wasn't all about politics. Brigstocke questioned the necessity of most train announcements and washing your hands after visiting the lavatory, whilst also cautioning men against drying their genitals in a Dyson airblade.

Despite its length and the weighty subject matter, the show was evenly paced and by the end the audience had been entertain and educated, with everyone having a better understanding of economic policy and with those who 'invested' money in Brigstocke to help him illustrate the banking crisis once more clutching the banknotes he borrowed mid show. Unlike the audience member in Leeds who Brigstocke apparently took £10 off and omitted to refund, finding the money in his shirt pocket afterwards, the Chorley audience did not go home unrewarded.

Justin Moorhouse, Chorley Little Theatre, 16 March 2013

Justin Moorhouse is fat.  But not fat in a bad way.  He’s more of your affable Hairy Biker kind of fat, the sort of genial fat bloke who’d elbow his way past you in his eagerness to get to the cream cake counter at Greggs and crack a gag in the process such that you wouldn't mind him beating you to the last eclair.

And Moorhouse is comfortable with his size.  It's not glandular or due to big bones.  It is, as he tells a packed house at Chorley Little Theatre, because at home the biscuits are next to the kettle.

Food is a subject close to Justin's heart and at different points in his act the biscuits, a sausage roll and a Ginster's steak slice all feature.  But it isn't just about food, and in a two hour set he also talked about his relationship with his teenage son, his eight year old daughter's obsession with Catholicism and whether, when the rest of the country was facing civil unrest, riots in Euxton and Whittle-le-Woods were ever a realistic proposition.  His conclusion?  They weren’t.

He has a go at teachers in a ‘I’m not having a go but –‘ kind of way which even the teachers in the audience could not help but laugh along at, before - and using an image that will be instantly familiar to everyone who's ever been on a Sunday outing with their family - recounting a childhood visit to Botany Bay that came to an abrupt halt when his father refused to pay the admission.  His own visit to an owl sanctuary as a parent witnessing bored dads trying to get a 3G signal in order to watch the football on Sky on their smartphones also resonated. 

Moorhouse wasn’t afraid to be edgy – his jokes about Paralympian swimmers and the Asian guy running his corner shop had the audience wondering whether they dare laugh or not while he showed that beneath the affable exterior lies an experienced comic when he dealt firmly with a drunken heckler who, having slept through the first hour of his act, started to shout incoherently.

A good comedian draws you into their world, settles you into your seat with an introductory gag or two and then takes you on a journey looking at things you might not have thought you were going to spend your evening contemplating.  So it was with Justin Moorhouse.  Gay sex, teenage masturbation and paedophilia were probably not topics that the audience were expecting to be listening to as they sat eating their pre theatre madras in the curry houses of Chorley, nor where they thought Moorhouse would be taking them when he stepped onto the stage and blinked at them from behind his spectacles.  But that’s where he took them.  And they loved him for it.

Sean Lock, Chorley Little Theatre, 11th March 2013

Sean Lock brought his Purple Van Man tour to Chorley Little Theatre as a work in progress.  The almost full theatre was treated to an hour and three quarters of material, some of which was clearly taking shape on stage as Lock delivered it.

Lock’s laconic delivery will be well known to TV viewers as one of the stars of 8 out of 10 cats.  Voted amongst Britain’s Top 20 comedians by Channel 4 viewers in 2010, and arguably the first comedian to play Wembley Arena (he was the support act to Newman & Baddiel at the time and so preceded them on stage) Lock has sold out three nights at The Lowry in Salford with his current tour so getting him to Chorley Little Theatre was quite a coup.

And since the tour was due to get fully underway less than two weeks after this show, the only real sign that the Chorley audience wasn’t getting the full article was a flip chart on the side of the stage that Lock occasionally referred to as an aide memoire.

His act comprised musings on a number of topics, such as the cost of food at the cinema, the state that most cinemas are left in by the departing audience, and the questions that children ask.  Lock has three young children and questions flow all day at a rate of one a minute, so whether it’s okay to lie to children (it is – better to say that there are monsters under the bed than tell them about the monsters out in the real world) was one subject around which Lock chatted for around ten minutes.

He also spent several minutes expressing his views on Sir Richard Branson (not repeatable in case I get sued!) and considering whether Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones or Radio 2 presenter Jeremy Irons would make a better sleeping bag companion, which gives a flavour of how left field some of Lock’s thoughts are.

Lock has a reflective style, and throws in the odd old fashioned gag every few minutes accompanied by an Eric Morecambe style shuffle to illustrate the showbiz nature of his delivery.  It may have been work in progress, but for the Chorley audience it was job done.

Tull, Octagon Theatre, Bolton, 2 March 2013

Tull, a play by Manchester United scout Phil Vasili about the life of Walter Tull, runs at the Bolton Octagon Theatre until 16 March 2013.

Walter was the first black player from Britain to play professional football (Arthur Wharton, who played in goal for Preston North End and who was the first black professional footballer, was born in the Gold Coast, now Ghana) and served with distinction in the First World War.

The play tells the story of Walter's life from the death of his mother through his football career at Tottenham Hotspur, where he was hounded out by racism from fans and opposing players, to his death in the spring of 1918 in Flanders.  Tull finished his football career at Northampton Town, chose to enlist and, had he survived the war, was ready to sign for Glasgow Rangers on the cessation of hostilities.

The play is performed by a cast of eight people who between them perform over 100 different parts. There is no scenery and no costumes. Despite this, the play works thanks to dramatic lighting effects, an able cast and a tight script.  Nathan Ives-Moiba, who plays Tull from the age of 6 until he dies on the battlefield is the one constant, with the rest of the players taking on the roles of Walter's family, key political and military figures in his life and football people that he encountered.

Tull encountered racism throughout his life, none more so than when he was at Spurs, and his relationships with Northampton's legendary manager Herbert Chapman and Suffragette Annie Williams are at the heart of the play.  This is a gripping tale and a must see for football fans as well as anyone just wanting to see great drama.

The final chapter of the story, as directed by David Thacker, has yet to be concluded.  For being black, Tull was denied the posthumous honour of the Military Cross that a white army officer would have been granted for similar acts of bravery in combat.  Until that wrong is righted (and there is an online petition to government calling for it to happen) this play serves as a fitting tribute.

Richard Thompson, Liverpool Philharmonic, 1st March 2013

Richard Thompson's reputation is built on that of a folk guitarist who, since his days as a founder member of Fairport Convention, has forged a solo career that now spans six decades. But Thompson likes to mix it up a bit and his latest UK tour features him at the heart of a solid three piece band with his new album Electric at the core of the show.

Accompanied by bass player Taras Prodaniuk and a powerful drummer in the shape of Michael Jerome, Thompson presented a set at the Liverpool Philharmonic that was at the rockier end of the folk rock spectrum, verging on heavy rock at times.

Opening with a trio of songs from the new album, most of which is played during the course of the following two hours, Thompson led the band through a thunderous set played mostly on a fetching pink Fender Stratocaster.

Dressed in his customary black clothes and black beret, a two hour performance saw Thompson displaying the virtuoso guitar skills that have led some to place him up there with Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton. And when the band encore with a cover of Cream's White Room, the comparisons are easy to make.  Thompson was cribbing from a lyric sheet for the song, but whilst he smilingly struggled to remember the words, his fingers never missed a note.  Clapton, take note.

As well as expert musicianship, part of the attraction of Thompson's live act is his witty repartee and he cheerily reminds his audience that no evening's entertainment is complete without both a murder ballad and a sea shanty, the latter finishing in 9/8 time.  When an audience member calls out for a song that the band hasn't rehearsed, he jokes that 'I’m the only one up here that knows that. Not that it's stopped us so far.’  And when fan favourite Beeswing is requested from the front stalls he responds ‘I’ve got the wrong guitar for that - unless you want the punk version,’ and then proceeds to play a couple of bars in just that style.  Beeswing later features in the encore, beautifully played on the acoustic.  Since it wasn’t on the original set list, Thompson presumably decided to accede to the shout from Row D.

Alongside staples such as Wall of Death and Did She Jump Or Was She Pushed, new songs Saving The Good Stuff For You and Salford Sunday stand up well.  Thompson remains one of Britain's foremost singer songwriters and whilst this current tour does not reflect the full range of his songwriting talent and the extent of his impressive back catalogue it does showcase his immense skill as a guitarist.  Rock on, Richard.

Terry Alderton, Chorley Little Theatre, 4 February 2013

When you go to see a stand up comedian it's reasonable to expect that the act will stand up and tell jokes.  But with Terry Alderton what you get is a running, jumping and falling over comedian with at least two voices in his head and a range of sound effects that would put the BBC's radiophonics workshop to shame.  It was entertaining and non stop, and the term 'stand up comedian' really doesn't begin to describe Alderton's act.

Much of the humour on display at Terry Alderton's gig at Chorley Little Theatre was visual.  The venue was barely a third full but an enthusiastic audience saw this Essex stand up deliver a tour de force.  Billed as 'work in progress' some of the gags fizzled out, yet it was still interesting to see and hear how the character of Liam at the Apple Store in the Trafford Centre is developing.  Similarly, Alderton's discovery of a vibrator in his wife's bedroom drawer was a theme that he appears still to be working on, as he returned to it several times during the evening.

One of Alderton's stage tricks is to turn his back on the audience and pretend his inner voices are talking to him with the audience able to eavesdrop. This device works both as a means of delivering a joke but also as a way of parking one that hasn't quite caught light.

At times the sketches - they are too unformed and flow into each other too much to be called gags - seemed to go nowhere in particular, but it is not due to a lack of material on Alderton's part.  If anything, watching his performance was at times like flicking through the channels with a TV remote and only staying with each programme for a few seconds.

The performance is full on.  Alderton is a ball of energy and a brilliant mimic too, whether it's pretending to be two feuding neighbours in Northern Ireland or a call centre operator in Mumbai.

Alderton was supported by affable Geordie Seymour Mace, whose act included his take on a visit to Botany Bay and an enthusiastic performance fulfilling a 'lifelong ambition' to be a backing singer with Gladys Knight & The Pips.

All in all, a good night's entertainment and the Chorley audience left feeling they had their money's worth. At £8 for a ticket this was excellent value for a comedian who has already been on the small screen in various guises and is determined to make it as a stand up and an equally funny support act.

Jack and the Beanstalk, Canolfan Dewi Sant, Eryrys, 19 January 2013

If the decision last summer by a group of pub goers in Llanarmon-yn-Ial to stage a community panto early in 2013 needed validation, then the clamour for tickets when the performances were announced such that a fourth show had to be added was surely reassurance enough.

Four sold out shows of Jack and the Beanstalk at St David's Village Hall in Eryrys were the result.  Co-written by Denise Deegan, Jenny Parks and Bob English, this classic tale was revisited with a distinctly rural feel, with joke after joke about matters agricultural.

As with any panto, a good villain is needed and the duties were shared between the evil landlord Gareth Jones and the ubiquitous Chris Lees who, as the Health & Safety Man, frequently appeared to quote the Government or EU regulations that cast members were breaching, from transporting of livestock to growing of beanstalks. Suitably knowing groans from the audience were the result.

Highlights from a spirited performance were Wendy Holifield as Jack's sister Jessie, Richard Martindale as Jack's mother Dame Trott and the Ugly Cousins Erma and Elsie, played by Oliver Beardwood and Richie Birch. For the audience who witnessed the latters' food preparation sketch, Saturday Kitchen will never be the same again.

Ruth Evans, as the vigorously thigh slapping Jack, and Ali Rennison as Jack's girlfriend also deserve a mention, as does Stephen Loughlin as the Giant's mum.

Such was the popularity of the show with cast, production team and audience members that 2014's production is already being planned.