Thirty-two years Lenny Henry has been around and in a world graced more often than not by the over-hyped and the plain unfunny, going to one off his shows is like stepping into a comfortable pair of slippers.
You know more or less exactly what you’re going to get - two hours of anecdotes interspersed with sketches and impressions - but you don’t care. This is Lenny Henry and, when all is said and done, he’s funny. Okay, not rib-cracking and not riotous, but funny nonetheless and his ability to engage with an audience remains undiminished.
Indeed, he is much better at doing this than he is reintroducing characters from his popular TV shows, such as Neville Lister, when the sets are shown on a big screen and the props are minimal.
His impressions, too, are very good and his rendition of famous stand up comedians in other jobs is priceless; Tommy Cooper as an aircraft captain in distress and a rap star as a Radio 3 DJ, are worth the admission fee alone.
Always confident of his ability, Henry takes control and rarely lets go, though perhaps cracking jokes about soldiers getting shot at in Iraq is a little much.
All in all, this is a good night out and, before leaving the stage, Henry asks the audience whether they’ve had a “nice time”. Not a good time or even a great time, but a “nice” time and that is the word that probably sums up this performance best. Nice.
Production information can change over the run of the show.
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