Jason Manford: "A Manford All Seasons". The Pavilion Glasgow, Friday 20th June 2025

The air conditioning is noisily blasting out prior to the show, desperate to lower the temperature in the theatre. Outside, the heat has been incredible. Another warmest day of the year so far. I'm feeling sleepy but excited. I've never been to a Jason Manford show. The drive in was fine, except for the road closures coming off the motorway, with none of the sideroads off Bothwell Street open due to JJ Abrams' film Ghostwriter being filmed in those locations. My wife thought she saw Glen Powell, but it might have been his stunt double. I was too busy watching the crawl of traffic, realising too late that my lane was blocked off.

I didn't know who the support act would be and was delighted when Ray Bradshaw appeared on stage with his BSL interpreter. I've seen Ray many times and never failed to find him funny. He has a conversational charm that belies the sharpness of his jokes. I've heard most of the material before, but it still tickled me because it's so good. He's playing the Armadillo on April 11th next year. 

During the interval, a stage hand brings on a tall chair and a table draped in black cloth, upon which stand a glass and a jug of water, along with a paper folder. The music playing is eclectic, including one of Jason's own, "Assembly Bangers", according to Shazam. Nena's 99 Red Balloons and Hayseed Dixie's version of Ace of Spades also stand out.

The theatre isn't sold out. Sales have been respectable with downstairs and the Circle mostly full, but the Balcony isn't open as far as I can see. Not surprising given he toured the same show last year at the Armadillo. The audience skews to an older demographic.  

Jason's act is proper old-school storytelling. He talks about his family (six kids!) and his parents (his dad never comes to see his show - "I don't go and watch your brother doing his plumbing, do I?"). The chair, on which Jason is perched for most of the show, reminds us that he is a safe comedian, as he puts it—an entry-level comedian—and that description is fair. He knows how to craft a routine, stringing together sequences of jokes that persistently entertain. I don't nod off, despite the heat, though my eyes want to. It takes me a while to shift the idea that he's not Gary Barlow, half expecting him to break out 'Greatest Day,' their accents sounding identical. An hour and a half later, he's done, telling us he eschews the idea that comedy should end on a high note, then undercuts that with a verbally dextrous routine about whether comedy is art.    

After the show, we popped to McDonalds for milkshakes and sucked them down until the paper straws dissolved as we headed back towards Bothwell Street to see if we could catch some Hollywood action. Unfortunately not. They were filming inside one of the buildings, so all we had to show for it was this picture and an aftertaste of decaying paper straw.

Ticket Price: £79.00 (for two tickets) plus Transaction charge £3.95 = £82.95 from Trafalgar Tickets

Day Four: Thursday 6th July, 2023 - "The Wizard of Oz" Press Night at The London Palladium.

Warning: this blog contains plot spoilers. Having game experience in D&D will also help.    

It was a warm and sunny evening in London and the streets were busy with workers heading home and tourists curious to discover what was going on outside the London Palladium. As this was press night, barriers lined both sides of the narrow Argyll Street with press photographers corralled into a pen opposite the doors. A yellow carpet had been laid in front of the theatre, instead of the traditional red one, to represent the Yellow Brick Road. PR staff buzzed about, ensuring each newly arrived photographer received a press pack containing the images and names of the anticipated guests. Security in dark suits endeavoured to ensure public safety by controlling the flow of pedestrian and car traffic when the pavement opposite became clogged with onlookers. They also wore earpieces to alert them to the arrival of anyone famous.

From our position across the street, it became a friendly competition to identify first who the next minor celebrity being photographed was.  

Jenny Eclair

Seeta Andrani

Jo Wood, former wife of Rolling Stones' Ronnie Wood.

Linda Robson and family

Steph Mcgovern

Andi Osho

Kathy Lette and Anneka Rice

Alfie Boe

Gregg Wallace

Ore Oduba

Sinitta, with her dog

Sally Lindsey and her family

We had to join the queue to go in so missed loads of others but they're all pictured here (Getty Images). Follow the link to see: Toby Jones, Christopher Biggins, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, Nigel Havers, Sandi Togsvik, Bruno Tonioli, Dawn O'Porter, Ross King, Martin Lewis, Beverly Knight, Dame Kelly Jones, Fleur East and others I wouldn't have recognised. 

The view from the Grand Circle, row B

The show I liked but it didn't wow me. I didn't realise it was a touring production so the staging was sparser and not as big as I'd anticipated. It didn't inhabit the theatre like a residency would but that flaw was on me. I was disappointed too that the flying monkeys didn't fly (though their design was excellent) and the special effects were not so special but that didn't stop the show from being entertaining. The songs and singing were good, the choreography was of top West End quality and the performances were mostly excellent. Jason Manford utilised great comic timing as the Cowardly Lion, Ashley Banjo employed a street dance ethic for his version of the Tin Man and Louis Gaunt brought a loose physicality to his performance that embodied the 1939 film's Scarecrow. The Munchkins were taller than I'd expected but the production didn't seem to suffer for it. Dorothy had a great voice and Gary Wilmot was great as the Wizard.

The biggest novelty was probably Toto the dog. Once you ignored the grown man operating the puppet, it was difficult not to fall for the dog's charms, with its expressions, wagging tail and the natural way it bounded about the stage. 

Overall, it was a fine, family-friendly show that I wouldn't need to see again. 

I did have one epiphany. 

I've always had a problem with the ending of the film, where Dorothy is told to click her heels together three times and think of home. Why did Glinda the Good Witch not just tell her that at the start? We could have skipped to the end of the film.

So, here's a Dungeons and Dragons analogy to explain it.

At the start, when she arrives in Oz, Dorothy is a first-level magic user with a dog familiar called Toto. She gets lucky during her first encounter and kills a witch by accidentally dropping a house on her. Without having to search the dead body, thanks to Glinda the Good Witch's intervention, she gets rewarded with a pair of ruby slippers, a powerful magical item imbued with a Protection from Evil spell. They later save her from the Wicked Witch of the West, who wants the powerful slippers for herself.    

As Dorothy wants to go home but doesn't know how, she follows the Munchkin's advice and takes the Yellow Brick Road to the nearest big city, the Emerald City, minimising the risk of random encounters on the way. She does, though, meet three NPCs (Non-Player Characters) and agrees to form an adventuring party with them.  

At the Emerald City, she meets a scary avatar of the Wizard, who sets them all off on a quest to bring him back the Wicked Witch of the West's broomstick. In return, he promises he'll send Dorothy home and grant the others the things they wanted too.  

They have more encounters, including one in a forest where they fail their saving rolls against sleep. Dorothy and Toto get captured by flying monkeys (not yet high enough level to fight them all off). The trio of NPCs rescue them, gaining enough experience points (XP) to level up their characters. Dorothy inadvertently discovers the WWW's secret weakness when she splashes her with a bucket of water. She gets loads of XP from the boss kill. Typical lucky magic user.

The Wizard rewards the NPCs by explaining they've already unlocked the proficiencies they sought. Toto messes up Dorothy's exit in the balloon but fortunately, Glinda is on hand to explain the slippers have a Limited Wish function, which Dorothy is now high enough level to cast. She even explains how to perform the spell. Dorothy clicks her heels together three times and repeats the magic words "There's no place like home".  

And we're back in Kansas again. Adventure over. Back to boring real life but happy for learning our lessons from the game.

The End.  

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