CityLife

Steve Coogan

BACK IN THE BLAZER: Coogan as the infamous Norwich DJ

BOOED off stage in Liverpool just three weeks ago, Steve Coogan must be glad to be back on home turf.

Despite his decampment to the blue skies of LA, Coogan still commands a loyal audience in Manchester.

Should evidence be needed of the city’s fondness for the Middleton-born comedian and Hollywood actor, this is the first of a sold out run of six dates at the Apollo – and a prelude to his M.E.N. Arena show later this month.

Ten years after he left the stand-up circuit, then, and audiences are still keen to see what Coogan can do. Disappointingly, the show demonstrates more about what he can be bothered to do – and that’s mainly half-baked turns and Monty Python-like big band numbers in familiar comic guises.

Star appearance

With the exception of a star appearance as Mancunian bludger Paul Calf, the first half of the show lives up to its billing; the characters and their skits are, by and large, unsuccessful.

Pauline Calf is the obvious opening turn: dolled up like a footballer’s wife, complete with Dolly Parton-style boob job (which she treats the audience to a flash of as her parting shot), she belts out a Bond-like homage to The Marriott Hotel before updating us on the twists and turns of her seedy love life.

She is, we learn, a respected novelist these days, and it’s this that turns up the best lines. Her book is set in the future – “the year 3,000,001” where men have morphed into dogs and our heroine, Polly Cow, finds herself plunged into a nightmarish vision. “She doesn’t know anyone.” Pauline coos sympathetically, “and her Switch card has expired”.

Saxondale

Ageing roadie Tommy Saxondale strikes even fewer funny bones with his lecture on the perils of drugs – although he brings welcome respite from Steve Oram’s agonisingly un-PC filler performance as a stuttering speaker from the arts council – and his friend, Manc emo dealer ‘Keanu Reeves’, doesn’t even make the cut.

The revival of try-hard comedian Duncan Thickett is surprising, but there’s some pretty big laughs to be found there if you concentrate hard enough: both his news-print trousers with Gary Glitter daubed across his bottom (the rhyming slang is the source of the chuckle) and the subtext of his “observational” comedy are neatly inserted.

“Families, huh?,” he laughs, “I mean, where are they? Where are my family? You can never track them down… and you have to spend another night in the hostel.

Unfortunate

“He knows what I’m talking about,” he directs to an unfortunate audience member. “Cos he’s crying his eyes out.”

Duncan’s turn as a puppeteer for brother Darren, a sadistic ventriloquist’s dummy, is a genuinely welcome u-turn into the surreal that’s finally built on by a decent interlude sketch depicting Oram and Alice Lowe as Satan and God involved in a secret affair.

Paul Calf sees the crowd into the break with some fabulous one-liners: “Are you a Scouser and a Gypsy?” he asks his new love during his musical closer, “******* hell, I’m surprised I’ve still got my second name.”

And it’s a good job too, because he keeps bums on seats for the second half – the arrival of Norwich Radio DJ Alan Partridge.

Reinvented as an inspirational speaker, Partridge proves Coogan has still got something worth saying.

Nervous titter

His intro – a series of images of history’s most motivational people interspersed by shots of Noel Edmonds, Ross Kemp and Partridge himself – turns the first half’s nervous titter to a rolling belly laugh, and it takes one “A-ha” from Alan to get that much lacking audience participation moving.

Now the inventor of a self-improvement programme – catchline: Alan Partridge Will Rock You Into Forward Solutions – Alan finds himself fronting another flawed grand scheme.

Digital glove

With his digital glove (“I only wear the glove on one hand, a bit like Michael Jackson,” he says. “But mine won’t be used for evil.”), he kicks off a hilarious running gag, flicking through images and interactive games, arguing with Hitler, accidentally shooting President Kennedy and compiling taboo e-mails when he should be conducting interviews.

He’s also a playwright, in the Ernie Wise rather than the Shakespearean sense, and presents “a play what I wrote” about beheaded Catholic martyr Sir Thomas More. It has it’s moments, but mainly because Coogan plays More like the hapless Partridge.

The show, then, only really rescues itself at the final hour with a tongue-in-cheek musical finale – a Mary Poppins-meets-Monty Python number about Coogan’s reputation as the naughtiest insult in the swear word dictionary.

Cocaine

“Stories of cocaine,” he sings about the tabloid gossip that broke up his marriage to Caroline Hickman, “largely fabricated. Tales of strippers, some exaggerated.”

It’s a nod to what many people genuinely think about Coogan: the man. But it’s also not far from how many of these people are feeling about paying £35 to see his latest live show.

They applaud his return to the stage three times. But then they’re probably just trying to eke out their money’s worth.

Steve Coogan plays the Apollo until Saturday, November 8. Sold out. He will also play the M.E.N. Arena on Wednesday, November 19. Tickets are priced £30.

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