Al Pitcher @ Pyramid Arts Centre, Warrington – 24th October 2009

Apologies for the awful photo - it was the only one that I got.

I was looking around on Chortle on the day of the gig, and happened to see a big advert for ‘The Al Pitcher Picture Show’, with lots of good reviews, and I took this to be a good omen.

There were about 30-40 people in the audience and the show was ably started by the support act, Danny Mcloughlin.  He chatted pretty amiably with the audience, with the notable exception of the nuclear physicist on the front row, who didn’t want to play.  With a small audience, I think that a few people felt exposed.  Which is why I was sat at the back.

The show itself is based on such a great concept that I can’t believe more comedians aren’t doing something similar.  Al goes around the town where the show is to take place and takes loads of photos, then the gig is largely based on them.  What it may have lacked in slickness was more than made up for in the highly personalised nature of the material – how often do you get to see a comedy routine on the wonders of Warrington town centre?  It also helped that the Kiwi comic was a funny and engaging performer.  The show ended with a bit of graffiti that he found on a wall: all I can say is that Emma Carruthers is a very naughty girl.

At the end of the gig, he took a photo of the audience to put on to Facebook.  This has always slightly baffled me; are you supposed to add them as a friend or just their fan page?  The fan page doesn’t seem to have the photos from all the gigs on there, but adding a comedian as a friend seems to be an awful invasion of privacy.  Or maybe I’m just being weird about the whole thing.  I’d also like to point out that I would have behaved ‘wacky’ for the audience photo, but I didn’t think the camera was pointing at me.  These new-fangled modern cameras and their not-pointing-at-you lens.

My only criticism of the gig is that more people didn’t turn up.  I don’t know what it says about the town as a whole that only 40 people out of 200,000 made the effort.  That said, those who did show up had a great night’s entertainment and really enjoyed themselves.

I’d urge you to go and see one of these one-off gigs if you get the chance to…. especially if it’s somewhere that you live.