The
location - the University MAIN debating hall, the audience - all cringingly
young, almost foetal, the doormen - overkeen to get you to go to the
bar first, my seat front row right in the middle.
The
lights go out and "Anthony Hopkins" speaks over the PA, yes
- he's wanking as he does it.
Stew
and Rich enter wearing what I am sure are comedy mikes made of giant
cotton buds, but it turns out they are the real thing.
Anyway,
what happens next is near two hours of comedic greatness. There are
all the elements of TMWRNJ with added "adultness". This does
not mean adding the odd swear word to catchphrases - "The flipping
businessman in his sodding suit and tie" but instead superb, mostly
animal related, stuff that was sickly brilliant.
Fair
enough.
We
then have the King of the Show where unervingly most of the entries
read out came from a group right next to me on the front row. However
the KotS was a man who at first claimed that his cat "liked the
taste of human earwax". Rich and Stew really didn't believe his
explanation that the cat had leap up whilst the KotS was cleaning his
ears "like a normal man" and accused him of trying to feed
his cat various body secretions. As a punishment the KoS had to eat
a mix of Golden Grahams, dog biscuits and Stew's earwax.
The
rest of the first half was dominated by Histor's Eye where Stew
overdid the bird refer-hen-ces to egg-cess, "the other Richard"
's songs and the Diana material which seemed to go down well without
upsetting anyone.
The
second half started with another message from "Anthony Hopkins"
with an enormous pause before the end when he told us... well you know.
My
favourite bit of the whole show was where Rich wanted to know who was
the real sick man, him for doing SOMETHING to four owls "in turn"
as they were strung up in a line on trees or the business man for doing
SOMETHING SIMILAR to an otter which at first was trapped but then crawled
to its family. The audience was baying for "The businessman...."
and Rich and Stew had a jokey go at us for just wanting the catchphrases
during which Rich threw in a whispered " moon on a stick
"!
I
laughed so hard I had shooting pains in the back of my head. I think
this was still a good thing.
Another
animal bit came when Rich responded to a heckle something alone the
lines of "I want to take out you eyeballs on their optic
cords and point one at your eye socket to which I'll be doing (......)
whilst I point the other at your children, over whom Richard Branson
will be (doing what "Anthony Hopkins" does).
After
that what else could there be but a Big Daddy sketch (no, he did not
get the lyric out) and a song to finish!
It
was brilliant.