GICF: Des Clarke "Life After Des", Citizens Theatre, Glasgow. Thursday 26th March, 2026

The cynic in me might think this show was an excuse for Des to dredge up his old bangers from ten years ago, the last time he did regular standup. When your set includes references to the attempted terrorist bombing at Glasgow airport (2007), jokes about Scottish contestants on Family Fortunes ("Name a kind of bean", buzz, "A lesbian") and Wheel of Fortune (Can I have a G for Jumper please),  and carrying the Olympic torch through Glasgow (2012), you realise he's replaying his greatest hits.

But that would be unkind. He is, but he knows it. And he does it very well.

Advert inside the unisex toilet door

Des grew up in the Gorbals in the high flats ("My nickname was Lemonade because I lived 7 up"), so this show, at the Citizens, is a homecoming for him. He's proud that he's been able to fill this theatre, the audience full of friends, family and fans (the front row is full of his aunts and cousins). He admits at the start that he's shitting himself, hoping it goes well, which it does. His natural charm and loquacity keep us engaged, even on the rare occasion when he fluffs a routine (he kept mixing up the accents about a conversation with an American tourist in Edinburgh. His material is well-constructed, rich in humour, and delivered with perfect timing.  

We feel warmth towards him because he presents as a local, working-class boy who done good. He often makes himself the butt of his jokes, such as when he accidentally did a Prince Charles impression in front of the man, or when he got flustered and forgot the Olympic torch-carrying information, then messed up his section of the run. He's not cocky about his success. He can't believe he's got as far as he has. 

I would say, though, if he decides to do another show, he'll need to come up with some fresh material.

The support act was Scottish comedian Robin Grainger. Robin opened with a routine harking back to 2022 when he performed a show at the Edinburgh Fringe to an audience of one, also known as an audient. The story snowballed when it was reported in The Scotsman, with Robin ending up giving press interviews to news organisations across the globe, becoming an overnight media sensation. He also commented on being single and dressing like a teen. His bath routine finale was hilarious. He's an engaging, funny and confident performer, but I don't know if I'd pay to see his show. He's still more of a mid-level performer.

A view of Grado and Adele  

On the Heart Radio Breakfast show, which Des co-hosts with Grado and Adele, listeners were asked which walk-on music Des should use, with the EastEnders theme and The One and Only by Chesney Hawkes mooted. In the end, he went with Back in Black by AC/DC, matching his stage apparel. 

The preshow music was suitably mainstream and of broad appeal to his radio audience.

House of Fun - Madness

Give a Little Bit - Supertramp

Send Me On My Way - Rusted Root

Personal Jesus - Depeche Mode

Once In a Lifetime - Talking Heads

Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard - Paul Simon

Home - Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

At the interval, the woman on my left jiggled her bum so much to Jump In the Line by Harry Belafonte, I thought I was getting a lap dance. I enjoyed watching the ushers tell off the other patrons in the front row of the Circle for placing their drinks on the balcony shelf. I'd either be sending the ushers telepathic signals, urging them to pounce, or trying to muster telekinesis to knock the drink over the side.   

My eye was drawn to one of the statues within the room. I suspect she may be a distant relative of the Weeping Angels, known as a Saucy Angel, intended to make their victims look away. 

Don't blush!

Before you know it, you'd be living in the Noughties with a family of four and another on the way, thinking to yourself, "Where is that large automobile? This is not my beautiful house! This is not my beautiful wife! Well... how did I get here?" 

At least, Des's material would be new.

Ticket Price: £27 x2 + Booking Fee £1.50 = £55.50 from the Citizens Theatre website.

GICF: Harry Enfield And No Chums! King's Theatre, Glasgow. Wednesday 25th March, 2026

I attended this gig on my own. The irony.

I expected a nostalgia-filled trip down memory lane, with Harry sharing clips from his various series, but that wasn't what we got. Yes, there were a couple of videos, but the screen was reserved mainly for photos of his family and his various comedy creations to illustrate the narrative of his life. Maybe he didn't want to pay the TV companies for the footage.   

He opened the show as King Charles III, wearing a crown (as per his merch). He thanked us, his subjects, for coming along, setting the tone with a joke about his brother Andrew. Then, having removed his headwear, he began recounting the tale of his life, from foetus to the present, peppering the show with stories about his characters, the people he worked with and the celebrities he encountered along the way. He also performed new sketches as some of his favourite creations. Harry's vocal mimicry is superb. He surprised us with a perfect Bob Mortimer and a snivelling Ricky Gervais, transforming the latter into Gollum, who fawned over Harry's talent. 

Things I learned:

He was one of four siblings, the only son. His mum developed post-natal depression after the birth of his youngest sister, and he took to gurning to try to lighten her spirits whenever she took one of her turns. He also ate coal and was a late developer.

He got sent to boarding school until age fifteen, being transferred to a regular comprehensive after he admitted to his parents that the Benedictine monk teachers regularly beat him.

Having passed his O Grades early, he got moved up a year, so he got to hang around with the big boys, who would take him to punk gigs in London, where he could nervously approach the likes of Joe Strummer post-gig to tell him how good they were.

At York University, he reluctantly went to the theatre with his girlfriend and had his eyes opened to the possibility of performing comedy. The double act they saw blew his mind with their Monty Python-style humour. He went on to form a double act called Dusty and Dick with Bryan Elsley (who later co-created Channel Four drama, "Skins"), took the show to Edinburgh, then headlined on the London comedy scene, with the likes of Paul Merton and Mullarkey and Myers in support (as in comedy legend Mike Myers). 

Paul Whitehouse was a mate who lived nearby on the Hackney estate (Charlie Higson was his next-door neighbour). Originally, a plasterer, Paul would latch onto character catchphrases, wringing the comedy from them. Harry would nick the best ones, writing them up into sketches. He paid Paul back by inviting him onto his show, and the rest is history.

Harry was friends with George Harrison. Once, when he was over at George's house, Paul McCartney popped over, and they all had a few drinks. The conversation devolved into bitterness as George related how his business manager had swindled Handmade Films out of millions, the ippy trippy hippy turning more scouse by the second, requiring Harry to step in with his "Calm down" catchphrase in the style of his Scouser character. Whether that actually happened is debatable, but it made a good story.

Harry had a home in Cornwall, but much as he loved the beautiful views, the village was full of London hoorahs. One day, driving through the village to visit a friend, the road was chock full of these posh snobs, so in the car, Harry shouted, "Get out of the bloody way", a phrase his young daughter repeated with the window wound down as they passed by, only to realise one of the poshers was the then Prime Minister, David Cameron. They had a right laugh until David also turned up at the friend's house. And that was how Harry became friends with David.

The follow-up to that story came when Harry wrote the poshers' sketch, in which the pair of gentlemen surmise that David is queer. The next time David phoned Harry, he introduced himself as "Hi, it's Queers". Lovely man, terrible politics.

They hired Kathy Burke for the TV show because her acting was so bloody good.

He wrote a series of sketches for a character called Patrick the Paedo Priest, but bottled it when it came to using them on TV. His then-ten-year-old son even suggested a sketch for him, using the character.      

  

The Q&A led to a wonderful anecdote about working with Vic and Bob as minor characters on a Comic Strip film. Bob wanted to leave for the day because he had no lines and was only required to be in the background, so he asked Harry to ask the director, Peter Richardson, for permission to leave. Peter declined, so as revenge, Bob placed a turd of his own making on top of the privet hedge that divided the two leads' trailers. The turd was allegedly visible in the shot during filming. If that's true, I wonder how long it will take for Bob to share that story on "Would I Lie To You?"

      

Harry is now sixty-five, too old to perform as Kevin the teenager, but not too old to give us a really funny night. 

"Loadsalaughs!" 

Ticket Price: £47.50 plus fees = £54.25 from GICF (on presale)

Blurb

From the meteoric rise of Loadsamoney, a Thatcherite Visionary, to the fury of Kevin the Teenager, Harry will reflect on 40 years of being in comedy and bring some of his favourite characters vividly back to life on stage.

Then it’s over to your questions: your chance to ask how it all works for him, what he’s most proud of, and what he says to the many who ask, “You wouldn’t be allowed to do your stuff today, would you?”

Don’t miss an unforgettable evening with a brilliantly silly and strikingly insightful comedian

An Audience with Mick Miller, The Pavilion, Glasgow. Tuesday 24rd March, 2026

 

When I purchased tickets for this show, I selected seats in the front row of the Circle. I then got confused when Trafalgar Tickets sent me a second email with a different set of tickets attached. The bit the email didn't make clear was that they'd decided to close the Circle, and as such, move everyone downstairs to the Stalls. 

As you can see from the screenshot, taken an hour before the show, ticket sales were disappointing (the light blue dots represent unsold tickets).  

When we arrive at the venue, Mick is outside at the stage door, lighting a cigarette as he chats to a couple of fans. I don't stop. Horrible, stinky habit.  

The audience inside is predominantly that age group who can travel for free with their bus pass (I'm not talking schoolies). Any younger ones present remind me of unpaid carers taking an elderly relative to see the comedian from the telly, half a century ago, when telly only had three channels. They remember Mick being the bald one with the long hair and the youngest (he's seventy-six now).

Ryan Gleeson opens the show with a funny set, short enough to let us adjust to his facial hair, accent and unusual clothing (brown trousers so wide they looked homemade). He then introduces Mick. 

Mick doesn't mention the audience size and instead delivers a professional set packed with gag after gag, many of which are just as clever as those of any modern comedian. Most are unthemed, though a few link together, such as working with a circus. "The incontinent trapeze artist got sent on first to warm up the audience; the apprentice lion tamer is offered advice on what to do if the lion doesn't behave as expected: "If all that fails, what you do is reach down into the sawdust and grab a turd to throw in its face." "What if there's no turd?" "Don't worry, son, there will be."  

I knew Mick could deliver modern-style material. I'd seen him do it twenty years ago on a reality TV show called Kings of Comedy, where older and younger comedians swapped venues to see if they could raise a laugh. The thing about Mick is that he understands how to be funny without resorting to inappropriate material (by today's standards). Tonight, only one gag stepped close to the line: "A Chinese man opened a crow's shop. He asked me if I wanted to buy anything. I said, "Okay, I'll have a rook." (You have to imagine the accent).

After the interval, two chairs and a table were added to the stage, with two pints of what looked like Guinness, one with a straw. Ryan obviously didn't want to get beerhead on his beard and moustache. 

This section of the show was more loose and less funny. He discussed his time as a youth footballer, before he moved into showbiz, working in Pontins as a bluecoat.  Some of Ryan's questions sounded like lobs for Mick to score a gag, while others led to anecdotes that didn't go anywhere. 

Mick does a fine Bernard Manning impression, capturing both the voice, the manner and the style of the seventies comedian. 

Somehow, Mick's microphone died twice during this section, despite being replaced after the first time. 

When a woman got up to go to the toilet, Ryan automatically kicked into MC mode, asking the audience if she was with someone, and discovering her name. He wanted to play a practical joke on her by having her partner swap seats with someone in another part of the theatre. He wouldn't, and she wasn't away long enough to push it further. When she returned, Mick commented about the short time she'd been away, asking if it was a pee or a poo. She replied it was nothing - she was constipated - to which Mick recommended she pop two Imodium and everyone stand right back. People laughed, but not me. The joke was incorrect. He should have said Senokot. Imodium would only make her more constipated. I can forgive him the gaffe, as it was off the cuff. At least he chose a product from the correct section of the pharmacy.     

Mick finished the night performing his Noddy gag. I'd forgotten how it went. I don't think he did it justice tonight. It seemed rushed. Maybe he was dying for a fag.

Overall, the night went better than I expected. I had been concerned that the small audience would kill the gig, the laughs disappearing into the Gods, but that didn't happen. The space felt more like a comedy club with everyone consistently laughing. 

Ticket Price 2 x £31.00 plus Service fee  £3.95 = £65.95 from Trafalgar Tickets

Blurb

His workload is as busy now as it has ever been, he never stops! His deadpan delivery and his unique hairstyle are what people remember, but he constantly works on his act and is forever adding new gags and stories to keep it fresh. He can’t leave a venue without performing his set piece, Noddy routine. The audience just wouldn’t let him!

In this show, Mick performs a full comedy set in the 1st half and in the 2nd half is interviewed by comedian and close friend, Ryan Gleeson. The interview is very funny and informative, and it’s never the same twice. Ryan is always trying to find out new things and Mick keeps trying to make Ryan laugh.

This show is a must for comedy fans.

GICF: Maisie Adam, Work in Progress, The Old Hairdressers, Glasgow. Sunday 22nd March, 2026

It's never fair to review a Work in Progress as, by definition, the jokes are not the finished article. So instead, I'll reflect on other aspects of the night (That makes it sound like she wasn't funny. I promise she was).

This was my first visit to The Old Hardressers, a pub, not a barber shop, on Renfield Lane (although this was something for the weekend). The narrow building does a good job of concealing its attic performance space. We queued on the first floor for what turned out to be an intimate show. 

Maisie had her notes and explained that she would rate our responses to each routine out of ten, like Strictly, only without the number paddle. Despite not being the finished product, she reassured us she could definitely give us £12 worth of jokes, the price we'd paid for our tickets (excluding booking fee). Fortunately, her hit rate was high, rarely below seven, except for the last joke, which she rated a five.

What was a bit different was when she stopped to ask us our opinion about whether one of her bits was laughing at someone or with them. She was worried it might reflect badly on someone who had done something out of love, not incompetence. That opened a debate with the crowd, turning the evening into a counselling session, a creative writing group, a Q&A time and therapy. By the end, we had all agreed that Edinburgh are fannies (that's not why she isn't playing there).

She reminded us to please buy tickets to her actual tour show at The Pavilion on September 23rd. 

It's a big step up from The Stand and Glee Club, where she toured previously. If we do, though, she won't stop doing her voiceover ads for a 'well-known supermarket', because that money is funding vital home renovations so she and her husband can move out of her parents' house. 

Go see her. She is funny*. 

* selected lines only; tickets subject to availability; offer ends September 23rd, 2026; invitation excludes misogynists called Gabriel; online booking fees may apply. 

Ticket Price: £12 x 2 plus £2.40 booking fee = £26.40 from See Tickets via GICF 

GICF: Mike Wozniak "The Bench", Citizens Theatre, Glasgow. Saturday 21st March 2026

So what do Yare Dabestanie Man by Fareydoon Foroughi, Which Side Are You On by The Almanac Singers, Ой, у лузі червона калина by гурт Ятрань, Sukiyaki by Kyu Sakamoto, La paloma de la paz by Chicho Sachez Ferlosio, Żeby Polska była Polską by Jan Pietrzak, E Depois Do Adeus by Paulo de Carvalho, St'armata! by Petros Pandis and 99 Luftballons by Nena all have in common?

You would know if you attended Mike Wozniak's show, though you might not have realised the answer at the time, unless, like me, you have an ear for the unusual (or a handy Shazam app). 

Mike arrives on stage dressed in his usual brown suit and immediately asks if there are any amateur (or professional) sleuths in the audience. He needs our help to solve a mystery over who burnt down his village's memorial bench. 

The list of pertinent characters is massive (practically everyone in the village gets a mention), though he tends to go around the houses, as it were, detailing the obscure minutiae of their relevance in case it helps. The level of detail gets so deep, it almost becomes tangential.  The humour comes from the most unexpected and surreal of places, such as (insert name), whose husband died in Namibia, from stubbing his toe... on a leopard. 

Having provided his evidence on the matter, the show's second half is much looser, as he asks the audience to shout out further questions, freewheeling in response, batting away our suspicions, and explaining why every culprit has an alibi 'to the max'.

I particularly enjoyed his explanation as to why he couldn't be the culprit. As secretary of the village's Northern Ireland Troubles Reenactment Society, he was appearing as Gerry Adams on the night in question at a secret meeting originally held in 1962.   

The ending is a delight as he casually drops the answer without realising it. 

And so the case remains unsolved.  

(Thankfully, there was no repeat of the seating fiasco that we'd witnessed at Mark Simmons. This time, the ushers scanned every ticket electronically as we entered to take our seats)

(The refurbished Citizens Theatre does not skimp on the lecky when it comes to auditorium lighting. They have so many bright light bulbs, you need sunglasses to look up).  

Ticket Price: 2 x £24.50 + Booking fee: £1.50  = Total: £50.50, direct from the Citizens Theatre website. 

GICF: BBC "Breaking The News" Recording, Drygate, Glasgow. Thursday 19th March, 2026

Host: Des Clarke

Panellists:
Raymond Mearns

Alexandra Haddow

Madeleine Brettingham
Ignacio Lopez

Audience Question: 

What is the biggest lie you've ever told, and why?

Topics:

Trump is demanding support from the Allies to protect the Strait of Hormuz

Inverness has been nominated for City of Culture 2029

Friends of the show: 

Phil Goodlad - Weather apps ruin attendance at Edinburgh Zoo - "just wear a jaiket". 

Nicola Meighan - Babies have learned deception before their first birthday. "Babies are liars".

Mystery Persons

Angela Rayner - warning that Labour is running out of time to make significant change.

Barbie - about the exhibition coming to Glasgow in the summer.

Final Quickfire round - 48% of workers say they want what?"

Klaxon - Martin Guissler "Shepherds Pie, cottage pie, what's the difference?"

On the way in, on the train, the youth sitting opposite snorted so often, as soon as the approaching platform message was announced, my wife made for the door, not even waiting for the train to stop. His disgusting behaviour was making her feel sick.

Ignacio's Spanish accent is so smooth.

Ticket Price: Free from BBC Tours and Shows. 

GICF: Mark Simmons "Jest to Impress", The Citizens Theatre, Glasgow. Wednesday 18th March, 2026

My first visit to the Citz since it reopened. I was unsure where to park and how heavy the traffic would be, so my wife agreed to let us leave early. How serendipitous that was. The street I usually park in on that side of town was closed due to roadworks. As we drove about, I somehow managed to find my way to the theatre's car park, which still had spaces. I snagged one spot, and within seconds every other space was filled, as if someone was finishing off a jigsaw. I watched one car fly round the car park to catch the last space near the entrance, only for another car to sweep in, turn right and snatch it from them. I thought there might be some argy-bargy, but no. Fortunately, another car drove off, leaving the disappointed party contented. 

Inside, the theatre looked gloriously modern, albeit with a few of the old touches, like the golden elephant-headed pillars. 

Although we were early, the cafe was already full, so we waited near the entrance to the performance space until the doors opened. The ticket scanners couldn't have been working, because we were allowed in after a cursory inspection of our printout, even though he was holding the relevant device.

We were among the first to take our seats, but it didn't take long for trouble to occur. As the place filled up, a dispute occurred over seating and rather than establish whose tickets were genuine, the usher offered the standing party different seats. Unfortunately, this only exacerbated the problem when those ticket holders arrived to find someone in their seats. He moved them too, and so on and so on. Then, a couple of minutes before the advertised showtime, a large couple arrived to find their seats taken, and they refused to accept alternative seats. They demanded to be seated in the seats they had chosen. A standoff occurred. The usher had to summon the duty manager, but given the extent of the problem and the limited time available, she struggled to get to the bottom of it and gave up after investigating the first three seat relocations. Fortunately, the lads in the large couple's seats agreed to be relocated again. The question remains: why didn't the usher summon the duty manager in the first place?

Ah, the irony of this picture.

The support act was Mark's mate and podcast buddy, Danny Ward. Danny's humour is described as being "observational, upbeat and well-honed; his easy-going style is both endearing and very funny". What I observed tonight was neither endearing nor funny. In the room, the only laughter appeared to come from those programmed to laugh, Pavlovian style, at any post-punchline pause. His jokes are well-honed, but to the point where the humour has been pared away. His material was weak, and his delivery felt mechanical. I did not enjoy him.

Interval snacks - Guinness and ice cream:
Well, it is the Gorbals on St Patrick's Day.

Mark's stage set includes a storage box (for his clipboard, notebooks, and a glass bowl filled with folded papers), a coatstand (bare), and a flipchart listing his set topics. 

Fortunately, Mark knows how to craft and deliver a joke down to the nth degree. He'd also cleverly structured the show to avoid one-liner overload, introducing elements like Mind Reading and Magic between topics. Inevitably, these bits were setups for more jokes. 

His longest joke involved recording the ages of most of the front two rows, then apologising for how long it took. "Sorry about that. Took ages." (wiggles eyebrows).

At the start of the show, he wore a tuxedo. Over the course of the evening, he took off his jacket, then his bowtie, swapped his brogues for trainers, his trousers for jogging bottoms and removed his shirt, revealing a vest, which he covered with a hoodie. I anticipated a punchline along the lines of "Got to jog off now. That's the end of the show." Then he'd turn back and say, "Did you like the running gag?" What he actually did was far cleverer. 

Mark is a master of funny. Shame it hasn't rubbed off on his support act.    

Ticket Price: £48.00 (for two tickets, includes a booking fee (£2) and venue fee (£2) per ticket) from SEE Tickets