Rhod Gilbert @ The Parr Hall, Warrington – 12th March 2010

Although I’ve seen Rhod Gilbert on TV quite a few times I didn’t really know what to expect from his stand up.  Other than he was probably going to be a bit shouty.

The support act for the evening was the excellent Tom Wrigglesworth who won the crowd over with his ability as a story-teller.  An extended tale about being in the audience of the Jeremy Kyle show was hilarious and warmed he audience up nicely for the main event.

During the interval I listened to a hilarious routine about a murder mystery evening that went horribly wrong.  But that was just my friend Joanne telling me about her week.  It was as if she was auditioning to be the female Rhod Gilbert.

Mr Gilbert was just as shouty and grumpy as I had thought, but he somehow managed to pull it off with likeability.  This is quite impressive as he didn’t let his mask of melancholy slip but he does it with such conviction and gusto that you’re taken along for the ride.  His whole shtick is to rail against the trivial annoyances in life and I felt quite exhausted by the sheer pace of his moaning.  But in a good way.

The seemingly disconnected show all came together for a nice conclusion and there was an inspired encore about the lack of enthusiasm for his encores.  For those of you looking for value for money, the whole evening was almost 3 hours long (including the interval), so we certainly weren’t short changed.

The most intriguing thing in the show was the woman sat near us who was crying inconsolably in the interval and then immediately started laughing hysterically when the show started.  We’ll never know what went on there.  But the show was really funny, and I guess that’s the main thing.