CityLife

Lee Evans: Big

By Marissa Burgess

PLENTY of acts employ a touch of faux gratitude in their performance, plastering a great showbiz smile to their face to thank their audience for coming to the show.

But when Lee Evans bounds out onto the stage, looks across at the thousands that have come to see him at the M.E.N. Arena and expresses his gratitude, you genuinely feel like he means it and that a small part of him really did expect there to be only a handful of people staring back at him shuffling their bottoms on the flip down seats.

As he broke the world record for the amount people played to by a solo act in this very space in 2005, there wasn’t ever really much doubt that he would have an audience tonight or on the other four nights that follow it.

Evans fits the space pretty well. With the aid of screens he “bought from Curry’s especially so everyone can see,” the stage gives plenty of room for that trademark Evans energy and bodily contortion.

He swiftly moves into his set, starting off with a barrage of ‘what is it with?’ type observations.

Commonplace

Much of this is the kind of commonplace stuff heard on the comedy circuit night after night such as the notion that most STD’s sound like names you might call your offspring.

In amongst it though are some lovely images - the multi-tasking abilities of pigeons and the flaw in the design of taser guns for example are wonderful.

Into the second section and an hour’s worth of material about those particular idiosyncrasies of his wife’s that drive him mental makes you wonder after 24 years of marriage whether divorce is on the cards.

There’s only so many times as a female member of any audience you can be told ‘you women do this… you women do that…’ But at the end he counters it with a heartfelt clarification about his partner, “she’s my soul mate.”

He rounds off proceedings in showbiz style with a couple of songs then squeezes in his famous Bohemian Rhapsody mime to bring the three-hour performance to a simple but effective conclusion.

Lee Evans plays at the M.E.N. Arena from until Sunday, November 16. Call 0844 847 8000. Evans’ DVD, Big – Live at the O2, will be out on November 24.

What did you think? Have your say.
 

Reviewed: Thu, 13 November, 2008

Your Ratings (Rollover to rate)

Register Now to rate this

Reviews (3)

Write a Review