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.