“I’m at the stage of the tour now where this is mostly for my amusement and if I get some laughs, then great.” And amused he was. A self confessed whimsical comedian, he readily admits there’s not a lot people can take away from his gigs in terms of the inevitable next day question from your friends: “what jokes did he tell?” But that didn’t mean he didn’t have the audience not laughing, far from it.

Like most comedians of Chris’ ilk, there never seemed to be any kind of plan as to how the evening’s banter was to flow, and he very often would just be saying things in whatever order they came into his head. In the first half, this included a lot of chat with the audience, finding out their views on how the area voted in the election, whether it had been a Roundhead or a Cavalier area and the inevitable question for a comedian at the Tivoli, “and what about Waitrose opening on the cricket ground?” He also gave us his theory about the quality of the university based on the length of the university’s name and the obscurity of its location (“University of Central England, just hiding the fact that it’s in Birmingham”).

His much longer second half saw Chris explaining why everyone is intolerant of something, everyone. He gave examples of his own intolerances (“The thing about me is…”) and how he is very dismissive of whole groups of people, based on purely trivial things (ugg boots anyone?). He explained how robots and Artificial Intelligence will only be as good as those that put them together (“nerds!”).

He broke down barriers, specifically the sex tips offered to married couples that can be found in many women’s magazines. Giving the top four things to improve the sex life, and showing why they could be discarded as flights of fancy.

When he was here in February at the start of this tour, he took away from the gig the notion of doing a Q&A session as his encore, this time around, he can take away the “Wimborne Dive” and attention distracting slippers.

Welcome back to Middle England, Chris.

SL

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