No sooner had I flown back from Bristol than I was off out again to see Chris Ramsay at the King's.
The audience was buzzing. When the lights went down, and Chris introduced his support act, the surge of applause felt more like a rally, with the audience cheering enthusiastically.
Carl Hutchinson is a Geordie comedian whose star is in the ascendant, thanks to his close association with Chris. His material is mainstream, mainly about his family, but he knows how to build a routine, his closer tonight being particularly strong. His description and demonstration of the sound made by explosive diarrhoea were so true.
I'll confess to tuning out at times during his set as weariness took over. Not that I had such problems staying awake for Chris. His energy and enthusiasm were electric.
Chris opened by sharing his concern that we'd think he'd deliberately copied Carl in choosing what to wear, since both were in the same style and colour of shirt. He even went so far as to bring Carl back out to prove that it was a different shirt from his own.
Chris then moved on to his proper set, letting us know he is both a scumbag and a snob, and went on to explain why. If another child disses his kids, his first instinct is to want to beat up the disser's dad. He fantasises about it all day, knowing he'll never actually follow through with the intention.
Thanks to the money from the hit podcast Sh*gged. Married. Annoyed, Chris and Rosie aspired to move somewhere nice and chose Northumberland, not realising they'd reached too high and would have to slide down a couple of rungs to feel comfortable again. Chris knew they wouldn't fit in when all the local kids had names like Atticus, Balthazar, and even Aslan, or when he had to explain to a six-year-old what a cheese toastie was. The final straw came when one of his children asked if he could start to call Rosie his mummy instead of his maw. It was then that they knew they'd have to move somewhere closer to their level.
Chris loves Rosie dearly, but needed to share with us privately how much her micromanaging gets on his nerves. I could relate to that, being asked to do something, then getting berated for not doing it the way my wife would have done it.
"Did you not think?" she would scold.
"Not like you, obviously," would be my unspoken thought.
The podcast brought them fame and fortune, but it was cursed. On the chat show circuit, he and Rosie were the last to be interviewed by Phil and Holly. On Graham Norton, they shared the couch with P Diddy the week the allegations against him broke (generating a nice gag remarking that Diddy is the only celeb whose name can be used in response to any wild statement, followed by the answer, "Yes, he did").
Their next appearance on Graham Norton elicited a star turn, which was later cut from the broadcast. When Graham introduced Lin-Manuel via video link, Will Smith began showing off by reciting the opening rap from Hamilton. He was surprised when Chris and Rosie joined in, both of them word-perfect. When Will fell silent after four lines, Chris and Rosie kept going, all the way to the end of the song, receiving a huge round of applause from the studio audience.
Now, Chris does not have definite proof that Will's team requested the cut... but he knows it's true. Fortunately, Chris's management recorded the whole segment on their phone from the Green Room monitor, and Chris was more than happy to share the footage with us tonight. The look on Will Smith's face when he realises he's been outrapped by two relative nobodies from South Shields is priceless.
Chris posited the theory that the humiliating incident got under Will's skin, where it festered for a month, eventually boiling over into fury at a certain awards ceremony, where he stormed the stage and slapped a comedian... called Chris.
This was a great night of comedy. Chris has a natural talent for being funny. Highly recommended.
However, those of us on the right side of the stalls at the front were unfortunately treated to a second show within the show (as in she made a show of herself). A small blonde lady, a few rows from the front, three rows ahead of us, decided Chris was talking to her and kept replying. I don't think she was drunk, given how steadily she rose to her feet, put on her coat and exited immediately after the show, but she seemed definitely on something, her head resting against the back of the seat, her body reclining deeply, her arm frequently rising into the air like a garage forecourt dummy.
Her voice was of a pitch that stood out, though often unintelligible. Chris would hear her and pause to listen, upsetting his flow. He engaged with her once, then quickly learned to ignore her rather than pander. But she kept on and on with her comments.
After the show, as we shuffled out of the room, the man who had been sitting beside her received a pat on the back from a stranger and asked how he put up with that. The man shook his head and said he didnt know. He was a better man than me. I'd have stormed out to find an usher to have her removed. Or worse, done it myself. Nightmare.
Ticket Price: £32.00 x2 + Service Fee: £4 x2 + Handling Fees £2.75 = Total £74.75 from Ticketmaster.
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