Talking Pants!

Published Monday 6 August 2007 at 11:40 by Duska Radosavljevic

Ian Billings writes for Chuckelvision, he publishes children’s poetry and is also a stand-up comedian.

From what I’ve seen, this last pursuit is largely a means of promoting the first two, his material revolving mostly around ‘why it’s great to be a writer’ - in the idiom of a schoolboy. Even though this potentially sounds vaguely educational, it is mostly a licence for Billings to indulge in a series of silly scenarios - such us turning Baa Baa Black Sheep into a subject of the Rhyme Squad investigations and setting Star Wars: The Return of the Jelly in a school canteen.

Billed as being suitable for six to 11-year-olds - Billing’s show stays firmly within that category, leaving adults predominantly unamused. And even though the children do chuckle and fill all the deliberate pauses with approving noises, it very much seems the person who is having the most fun here is Billings himself.