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.