Tuesday, 13th November 2001, an extremely bitter cold day in Londy, and I emerged from the delays and stuffiness of the Tube into the chaos of Shepherd's Bush in rush hour...   << Back to part 1 More in part 3 >>   Having not felt like braving the bar at the interval, I wondered who would be next on stage and if they'd be any good.  I mean, the first part had been quality, so what else was in store??   Opening part two was Daniel Kitson, who pretty much acknowledged from his first step on stage that he was going to die up there...and he did!!  Unfortunately, a lot of what he said didn't really appeal to me (apart from the bit about being scared of teenagers).  He probably made a bit of a mistake when he said, "You probably all think I'm a paedophile."   Equally as weird was Count Arthur Strong...hmm.  What to say?  Well, the character is basically an old film star/director who relates stories of his heyday.  It was all a bit too weird for me, with a re-enactment of a scene from a Dracula film he'd done in the past, where he took on both parts, a la Jekyll and Hyde.  I think it disturbed me a bit, if I'm honest.   After such weirdness of the half of this second part (if that makes sense) came some top quality laughs in the shape of...   Simon Day, one of the stars of the Fast Show alongside Paul Whitehouse. Simon's character was excellent - Billy Bleach, who lives in Bermondsey with his old mum, in a high rise council flat.  She invented the Robotic dance craze which hit the disco dance floors and Billy makes sure she keeps in practice, once a week in the living room.    Billy then revealed that he's a bit of a playwright on the quiet and gave us a performance of one of his plays set in a chip shop in Bermondsey ... choosing to leave the other characters to the imagination.  It was very cleverly done and it was very amusing when one of the invisible characters started to step out of line.  Fab performance.   Finishing the second part in fabulous style was Omid Djalili, an Iranian comedian.  At first he thought he was at the multi-faith centre in another part of London, but soon figured out that was next week.  He then gave us his take on various aspects of being an Iranian in the UK and observations on the cultural differences.   He then completely changed tack - and accent - talking as a Londoner instead of from the Iranian point of view.  That was v clever and he was hilarious when he said he had been a management consultant and was told by the other guys in the office that he was very funny - so he took the plunge into comedy... "I'm really rather funny!" - that was a very accurate assessment of such people.   I could go on for ages about his performance, it was so good, but the edited highlights saw him cover: Afghans as the Geordies of the Persian speaking world; Blair having to back Bush because we don't trust Bush to get it right; how there is a repressed nutter in every Scot and how people pull funny faces when they can't help someone - "No I haven't got a light, sorry!" *pulls funny face*.  Truly excellent stuff.   << Back to part 1 More in part 3 >>
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