Gavin Webster, Live Theatre
by Sam Wonfor, The Journal
WHEN I spoke to Gavin Webster last week about his then upcoming three-night residency at Live Theatre, he was at pains to point out that he wanted all, sundry and sundry’s best mate to feel welcome.
Comedy snobbery of any kind was not going to be order of the evening here.
And so it was that we had retired pensioners from Jesmond (big up to Harold and Anne) sitting alongside Viz founder Simon Donald, while a cluster of lager-swilling students were happily giggling away alongside some middle-aged ladies on a girls’ night out.
Hence the 39-year-old from Wallsend had a lot of boxes to tick if he was going to please some of the people some of the time… and even more if he was going to attempt to be awarded the coveted (yet still figurative) all of the people, all of the time medal.
Being a Geordie immediately went in his favour… as did the obvious fact that this was a custom-written show for his stay at Live Theatre. He really couldn’t have replicated this set anywhere else. This wasn’t the sort of postcode comedy employed by many-a-seasoned stand-up on tour where you can imagine the script having TBC gaps left like: <insert posh area here> or <insert local landmark here>.
We even had a score-keeping whiteboard at the back relating to the name-checked suburbs... as I recall, Kenton, Ashington and Jesmond were joint winners... although I’m sure I also remember more references to South Shields and Blaydon than that score suggests..
Mind you, all of this is not to say this was a parochially-soaked 90 minutes either.
It just so happened that a Geordie was doing some shows to his home crowd and so decided to put the work in to make them feel special. He even did songs, played a ukulele, mimed at an organ and have a crack at an electric guitar.
And it was all very funny across the boards of the theatre which seems to be making a cast iron success of its decision to do comedy seriously. If I were them, I’d book Webster up again in a black-and-white heartbeat.
