Silence of the Lambs, Theatre Royal, Glasgow. Thursday 27th August, 2026

Our trip to the theatre began with lunch at The Wild Olive Tree, within St George's Tron on Buchanan Street. It was busy, so we had to wait a short time to get a table. Their soup-and-scone combo was delicious and not expensive. They're not linked to the Theatre Royal, so no cannibal dishes were on the menu, but I could pretend the chef had added brains to the chicken, veg and barley soup.

The theatre was warm even before it filled up, matching the bright day outside. My wife had brought her fan, but I've asked her to stop calling me that.  

Sinister sounds play while we wait for the show to begin. The performance will be captioned on the screen above our heads and on the screens on either side of the stage. I made use of this feature quite a lot during the play, spotting the occasional time when the actors reworded their lines.   

     

Beforehand, I had two questions in mind: how will John Partridge compare to Anthony Hopkins as Lecter; and how will they translate the film/book onto the stage? I wasn't worried about whether it would be good, as the reviews had been most complimentary.

To answer the second one first, the staging, acting and script were clever. The story follows the film's narrative closely, though we get more Hannibal onstage than he was ever on screen. The structure of his cell is utilised well, with the back of it forming the walls of Buffalo Bill's pit. You do have to suspend your imagination slightly when one of Bill's victims is screaming to be released, with a set of stairs right beside her that lead to Bill's location (there are also the rungs of a ladder that Bill used to climb up).   

John Partridge does not attempt to copy Hopkins ' Hannibal. For one thing, the performance is more physical, making the most of Partridge's muscular body. A completely still performance wouldn't work on the stage, especially for those on the higher tiers. He still imbues the role with a calculated menace. The cat-and-mouse between him and Clarice plays out well. 

The actress playing Clarice is excellent, capturing the accent perfectly. We empathise with her position as the lone female FBI student in an organisation fuelled by testosterone. 

The second half of the play flies by, holding the attention better. 

If I were to complain, I'd say that because I knew the film so intimately, I spent more time wondering how they would achieve its scenes than following the story as it unfolded before my eyes. This familiarity reduced the show's impact. They also cut certain scenes, such as Bill's dance, and the film's most famous line about having a friend for dinner. It was still interesting to experience the film as a stage play.      

Rather freakingly, our neighbour from across the road was sitting directly behind us with her friend, having booked her tickets independently of us. What were the chances of that? More than you think, as this is now the third time we've met each other at a show at the theatre. 

But who is stalking who?

Ticket Price: 2 x £45 + £3.95 Transaction Fee = £93.95 from ATG Tickets

Production Stills (in no particular order)

GICF: Bridget Christie "Jacket Potato Pizza Tour", Theatre Royal, Glasgow. Sunday 15h March, 2026

A bonus gig after we decided to bring forward Mother's Day for our respective parents. Despite the late purchase, we still managed to snag tickets for the middle of the Dress Circle.

No support act, just Bridget performing both Acts. At 54, she is thriving as a single divorcee, enjoying life, looking amazing in her black jeans, white t-shirt and showbiz leather jacket, complete with sleeve tassels. I couldn't see any reason why Stewart Lee wouldn't want to be with her, even with her kidney stones. Listening to her perform, it's easy to hear the distinct rhythm they share in their comedy. 

In the first section, she had a good bit on imagining being friends with Melania Trump, taking her phone call and having to guess what her husband had done this time to upset her. Acting out the bit where an ex of hers requested she go cross-eyed to help him get off during intercourse was also hilarious, though the audience got so far ahead of her that she refused to say the punchline. The long-winded story from the friend who doesn't remember specifics and gets distracted by tangents finished the first act (which lasted thirty minutes, not twenty, as billed).

The broad audience demographic surprised me, everything from teens to pensioners, with no one group dominating. I put this down to the Taskmaster effect, with her appearing in series 13 of the show (2022). 

The second half was amusing but not as funny, starting with a bit about the date who made her a dinner of a dry pizza base topped by a dry jacket potato, moving on to the gender politics of the Netflix series Adolescence (she's allowed to do Stephen Graham's accent because they laughed in Liverpool at it), then the risks of a menopausal woman having sex with an anotomically male robot in a specialised brothel in Amsterdam, to misconstruing a medical diagnosis requiring vigorous intercourse to dislodge her too-risky-for-ultrasound-treatment kidney stones.

She tied up the ending nicely with a surprise callback from the first act, though it felt like a bit of a cheat the way she dropped it in to finish. 

She made us laugh, but she wasn't roll-in-the-aisles funny. The show might have worked better in a smaller performance space, where it was easier to watch her facial expressions sell the comedy.   

Ticket Price: £27.70 x 2 & £3.95 transaction fee = £59.35 from ATG

Stewart Lee, "Stewart Lee vs The Man-Wulf", Theatre Royal, Glasgow. Friday 26th September, 2024.

I have a lot of time for Stewart Lee. His material can be divisive, pushing the boundaries of conventional stand-up. When he strikes comedy gold, as he usually does, the laughs are deep and plentiful as he toys with the audience, showing off how clever he is.

This show is different. Here, he's tired and jealous of the Netflix-style comedians who make a fortune by punching down on vulnerable minorities, when he, an award-winning and highly regarded comedian, cannot secure a deal with any streaming platform. He wants a taste of it and thinks he's found the perfect vehicle to explore this idea.

His set consists of three main sections: the first, his normal, alternative schtick; the second, that of a Netflix $60 million-dollar, right-wing conservative comic; and lastly, that of a Netflix $60 million-dollar comedian if they were left-wing and libertarian, finishing with a bit of waffle at the end.

Only, he wrote the show last year, and now he's lost faith in it, he explains before the show starts. Some of the references he's included haven't aged well in this crazy news cycle world in which we now live. But he can't drop them because he forked out £6k on a prop for the second half, which acts as a callback to material he has in the first half, so he's going to have to tour the show for at least two years to make his money back, otherwise the whole endeavour would have been a complete and utter waste of his time and money.

He starts the show in his teddy boy coat and performs his material straight. He mentions his love of travelling around the country, seeking out stone circles and similar sites. He's frustrated at the audience for not giving him the replies he requires to continue his material, acting up for comic effect.  He performs part of this set on a barstool in the style of Dave Allan, only he can't place one leg over the other as he's so inflexible.

As he talks about another circle he visited in Cornwall on Bodmin Moor, dry ice billows across the stage from one side. Breaking from the bit, he complains that there is supposed to be dry ice from the other side, too, and that by mucking it up, the entire setup for the next bit has been ruined. He carries in mock indignation, as he relates the incident where he was approached by a large dog standing upright on its hind legs. Cue blackout and screams. The curtain falls.

He returns in the second half, under a full moon with the face of Gregg Wallace, as Man Wulf, a Netflix $60 million-dollar, right-wing, ultra-conservative comedian, whose catchphrase is "Lick my balls, suck my dick and make me a sandwich". He's encased in a full-body werewolf suit, with massive prosthetic claws and a tiny, visible penis. He performs his set, describing all the things he hates, generating easy, reactionary laughs. He also struggles to sit in the Dave Allen stool, extending the physical aspect longer than is necessary.

Finally, he rejects the wulf persona, discards the costume, except for the head and feet and performs a Netflix $60 million-dollar set as a far-left, libertarian comedian, whose catchphrase starts as "suck my dick, lick my balls and make me a sliced avocado open-topped sandwich on sourdough bread (or something like that) then morphs into something more politically correct. 

The point is, the Right can say what they want and get away with it. The Left are held accountable for their words. As Lee admits, the hate speech is the most entertaining part of the show. He enjoyed saying it, and we enjoyed hearing it. This is the problem that today's society is facing, and he doesn't have an answer.

He finished with a glimmer of hope for the future regarding his seventeen-year-old son's activism against the far right, going into detail about every step the boy took to bring the community together. Only, he didn't do any of that. He spent all day in his room on his phone like every other teenager in the country.

That was the end of the show, except it wasn't. We were in for an extra treat. Lee had invited the local band, The Primevals, to finish the night by playing the "Man Wulf" theme. So they did. Probably the best bit of the show.

I didn't engage with Lee's material tonight. I'm not sure why. I was there on my own, wedged into my tiny stall's seat, with two ladies on either side, one of whom was also on the large side. I remained self-conscious throughout, trying to shrink myself to avoid making contact with either of them. The larger lady couldn't help but nudge me occasionally as she laughed, making a point of correcting her position to keep to her side.

His usual shtick is to use repetition for comic effect, and that was on display, but to a much lesser extent. His use of slapstick and theatrical technical errors was a new area for him, which I felt didn't work. I much prefer it when his words and reactions generate the laughs. 

Perhaps this was the first step in his transformation into a more mainstream comedian, moving further away from the club comic mentality into the theatrical. 

Ticket Price: £36.91 including £3.95 transaction fee from ATG Tickets.

Dara Ó Briain: Re:Creation, Theatre Royal, Glasgow. Friday 27th June 2025

Because I'm an idiot, I put in my diary that I'd bought tickets for the Thursday performance, and I got one hell of a surprise when I found out I'd made an error - it was the Friday show - as I'd subsequently bought tickets for Ed Byrne at Paisley Town Hall for that night too. Not for the first (or last) time, someone suggested I hire a social secretary. I like both comedians, but I cannot be in two places at once. That is a physical impossibility, so I had to make a choice. My wife prefers Dara. He's a more sophisticated comedian, though both are excellent storytellers, so my Ed Byrne tickets made their way to Renfrew. Cheers, Colin.

Dara opened the show with some observational material and crowd work. Dara's improv skills are acute. He hit gold multiple times with the woman who sells plastic, the IT administrator for brand management at Tennants (Tennants Zero receiving an instant "Fuck Off" from the balcony), and the man who works on a "House boat" (Dara misheard him. What he'd actually said was 'Hedge Fund', but Dara ran with House Boat anyway because it was funnier). My only concern at this point was in making out everything he was saying. The sound from the speakers wasn't clear, and he talks so fast, it was difficult to keep up. 

Then, just as he was getting into his flow on the subject of identity, the one thing we hadn't expected happened. We all got an unguided tour of the Theatre Royal's fire escape corridors and backyard when the emergency alarm rang. It took an eternity to shuffle out. Dara had been talking about not minding people coming up to him for a selfie; it was the chat he detested, so he had to eat those words as we gathered outside. (There's no private fire alarm waiting area for the performers.)

When we were allowed back in, and he returned to the stage to finish Act One (or Part Two, as he now called it), he made a point of informing us that he still didn't mind selfies, but perhaps it shouldn't delay him returning to his work, for the show the people talking to him had paid to see.    

After the interval, 'Part Three' got to the meat of his material: that of his search to identify and locate his biological father. Dara's previous tour, "So...Where Were We?", discussed his discovery later in life that he'd been adopted and his difficult search to find his biological mother. This was the follow-up to that story, its continuation. Once again, he weaved a delicate, sensitive tale punctuated with humour, leading up to a doozy of a punchline that made the audience gasp. The fallout from that big laugh then became the subject of the encore.

Dara is such a skilled storyteller. It's easy to forget, given that he has been performing for thirty-five years, just how talented he is. Whatever his genetics, he's definitely got funny bones.   

Ticket Price: £35.18 x 2 plus Transaction fee £3.95 = £74.31

Nick Mohammed is Mr Swallow in Show Pony, Theatre Royal, Glasgow. Sunday 25th May, 2025

When this tour was announced, I decided against attending because I didn't find Mr Swallow's appearances on 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown funny. Then, I was offered a free ticket (cheers, Bob). The week of the gig, when my wife heard the show included magic, she decided she wanted to go, too, so I had to buy her a ticket. I managed to find her a single seat with a good view in the Grand Circle.

In a neat quirk of fate, Liam Withnail was the support act, which explained his absence from the Comedy Roadshow lineup the night before. I knew little about him, but I was looking forward to seeing him.

The proximity of our seats to the stage (and the stairs to the stage) made me feel uncomfortable. I knew Mr Swallow would need assistants from the audience for his magic tricks, and, this close, I knew I wasn't safe from being the target of crowd work. The copious legroom did not redress this nervousness. My wife was most amused by the picture of our view (see above).

Fuck!

I couldn't even relax during the pre-show music or sustain a conversation, such were my nerves. My ticket-providing friend agreed he would take one for the team should the situation arise, fall on the proverbial sword prop, as it were. 

The show began with Mr Swallow, dressed casually in a cardigan, going over his professional history while getting the audience to mix up a Rubik's cube. He then asked for a volunteer, someone who had never completed the puzzle before, to come up onto the stage so he could help them achieve this goal. To make matters harder, the woman in question, let's call her Diana, would finish the puzzle facing the audience, with her hands behind her back. Bob spotted how the trick was achieved, thanks to his viewing angle, so close to the side of the stage.

Liam Withnail was a revelation. An Essex comedian and former teacher living in Glasgow, he owned the stage with a confident set about stopping drinking and the bad symptoms of his ulcerative colitis, finishing on a well-received joke about an experience at airport security. 

After the interval, Mr Swallow returned, this time in a gold-sequinned jacket, to tell us about his interview with the BB, ahem, television network about getting his own sitcom. His humour is silly but slick, detailed, and terribly funny. He uses the screen to visualise his points (age ratings on Lego, Bafta show press reviews), and he is never afraid to make Mr Swallow appear as a fool while also being clever, demonstrating deft physical skills and magic tricks.

As a character act, Mr Swallow is quite a revelation. He can tell the exact number of cards that have been cut from a deck by their weight. He can tell who is lying and telling the truth from their voice. He can flip up his shoe and catch it. 

The finale tied together the many disparate elements of the show to bring about a satisfying conclusion. His material might not work well in short form on TV, but it was wonderful to witness in person. Charming, witty, clever, and funny, a super evening's entertainment, I loved it.   

 

An unfunny* evening with Tim Minchin and his piano, Theatre Royal, Glasgow. Wednesday 26th July, 2023

"Warning: This is not a comedy gig. Attendance is not compulsory."

I was excited when Tim extended his impromptu London dates into a tour and even happier when my boss got me tickets for the Glasgow show at the Theatre Royal (thank you, Kim). I've been such a fan of his work since seeing him at the Edinburgh Fringe all those years ago and still remain a little starstruck in his company (so this is far from an impartial review).

As the poster said, it was just him and his piano (plus acoustic guitar for The Aeroplane) with no scripted comedic links between the songs. Not that he was unfunny. He was constantly amusing in a stream-of-consciousness way as he remarked about the background to the songs, or about his family, or about how his career rocketed after Karen Koren brought him over from Australia to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe eighteen years ago.

He'd asked us beforehand not to film or record the performance so everyone including him could be present in the moment and he could relax to play around on his piano without fear of repercussions. He fluffed the occasional note but no one minded. This was an audience of fervent fans. The applause he received walking on stage was so loud it felt like the theatre was shaking.

When it came to the audience choice numbers, he asked us to shout out Huzzah for the one we wanted. That didn't really work (too English) so instead he changed it to something more appropriate for Glasgow. So the requests for 'You Grew on Me'  and 'Airport Piano' (over 'Drowned' and 'Leaving LA') were won by instead shouting Fuck You the loudest.  

Despite the size of the theatre (1500 seats), it felt like an intimate gig. He was chatty and amusing and played beautifully, tinkering with the songs as the mood took him. He made light of the bits he fluffed, reminding us it was a one-of-a-kind night. He was good company and I left the theatre feeling content. He'd been just as amazing as I'd expected.

Reflecting on the gig the day after, I reckon this was his way of marking out his transition from Comedian to Performer. If he tours again (and he doesn't need to thanks to his Matilda money), I don't think it will be a comedy tour. It will be all about the music. And I'll be there, still starstruck and loving every minute.

Setlist

Beauty

Understand It

You Grew on Me  (Audience choice over 'Drowned')

Airport Piano (Audience choice over 'Leaving LA') 

Apart Together 

Lucy

So Much Love

Quiet

The Fence 

I Can't Save You

The Song of the Masochist (Timmy the Dog song)

I'll Take Lonely Tonight

The Aeroplane

Encore:

Darkside

White Wine in the Sun

The stage is set 

An Evening with Fran Lebowitz, Theatre Royal, Glasgow. Sunday 16th April, 2023

Tour blurb: 

"An American original and purveyor of urban cool, the cultural satirist and author is pointed, forthright, unapologetically opinionated, and known for her hilariously dry social commentary on American life. Lebowitz’s recent Netflix documentary series directed by good friend Martin Scorsese, Pretend It’s A City, was an unmitigated hit with its offering of a tantalizing snapshot of New York in full bloom, along with Lebowitz’s lively and unapologetic commentary on what it means to live there.

For a limited run of dates, Lebowitz will be live in conversation, sharing her invariably cutting take on anything and everything; from growing up in New Jersey and being expelled from her high school for being a bad influence on her peers, to moving to New York City in the ’70s, and writing a column for Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine. She’ll offer insights on such timely issues as gender, race, gay rights, and the media, as well as on her own pet peeves—including celebrity culture, tourists, and baby strollers."

I purchased tickets for this event more as an indulgence. I can't claim to have read any of her work and I've only ever seen her on tv, such as on Real Time with Bill Maher and Pretend It's a City. She's always funny, in a character-comic sense. Only it's not an act. She states her opinions and, generally, they are hilarious. She has no concern if you agree with them or not because she is correct in her own mind. 

For the first act, she was interviewed by journalist Matthew Stadlen, who sounded very plummy with his posh London accent. His questions were neither probing nor that interesting and jumped all over the place but at least she could understand him. Her responses were witty and in character. I got the sense that she hadn't warmed to him.   

The audience loved her. The demographic was mainly middle-class with a few rich arty types, who'd dressed up for the theatre, with fancy haircuts and designer spectacles. FANE must have kept the ticket prices lofty to keep out the Glasgow riff-raff.

Then came the second act, where the audience got to ask questions. I think you'll be able to guess why this section was less satisfying: a New Yorker in her seventies with little experience with Scottish accents, in a theatre with four floors, asking the audience to shout out their questions. We either got silence or too many people shouting out. Those in the upper levels who raised their hand had no idea if she was pointing at them or someone else. Then she couldn't make out what they were saying and had to rely on those in the stalls to repeat/ translate. Fran did her best and was consistently funny but her not getting the question wore thin.  

The question I wanted to ask was why she'd requested no mics (see image). It would have been far more sensible to have the audience email or text in their questions and allow Fran to pick the ones she wanted to answer. But then she doesn't use or own a mobile phone or a laptop. 

I noticed a few in the Dress Circle leaving before the end. I found out why as we left. The queue for the book signing was looooong. I didn't wait. 

As a curiosity, the event was okay but not much more.        

Ticket Price: £41.50 (x2) plus booking fee £5.80 and transaction fee £2.80 (via ATG)

Horse, "The Same Sky – 30th Anniversary Tour", Theatre Royal, Glasgow. Sunday 5th June, 2022

I fell in love with this album when it came out in 1990 playing the cassette constantly on a loop. The songs were beautiful, touching and catchy. Horse's vocal range was fantastic. Later, I got to see her perform live at the Tramway (Saturday, April 9th, 1994) when she and her band appeared second on a bill that included Ed Alleyne-Johnson, Gin Blossoms and Texas.  It was an amazing night. Looking back at the acts appearing on the other nights of Sound City '94, they would all have been great. The Thursday gig had Oasis as the opening act!

Thirty years later, coincidentally, I revisited the same sky having picked it up cheaply on CD from Music Magpie, again finding enjoyment from listening to it over and over. When Regular Music announced Horse was playing an anniversary show in Glasgow to celebrate the album, it was a no-brainer to get tickets. Then along with everything else, it got rescheduled. 

After the pomp and spectacle of Queen and Adam Lambert, this was always going to be a more low-key kind of show. It was in a posh theatre, there was no stage set to speak of except a dark backdrop with her seahorse logo (which at times reminded me of the tail of a chest buster from Alien) plus a few lights. Mostly, it was about the music.

With the theatre half empty at first, the first act, Terry Logan, came on and introduced the evening, playing two numbers, neither of which were particularly bad. She then introduced the main support, The Eves, who played as a duo tonight. The pair reminded me of two musically-talented Primary School teachers putting on a show for the kids. Pleasant tunes, pleasant costumes, pleasant songs. Marissa reminded me of Sara from Sara n Junbug in voice but without the tattoos or the rapping. During their last song, Horse and her band paraded on stage behind them for a lark, wearing face masks depicting the duo. 

During the interval, the place filled more completely as the Horse faithful took to their seats. And Horse delivered for them in spades. If anything, her voice is even better now than it was all these years ago. She is so comfortable on stage and creates a cosy atmosphere. Everyone is enjoying themselves, both on stage and in the audience. She plays through the album in the correct order (she doesn't like the shuffle function - she put effort into thinking about how the album should flow), with Careful, accompanied by the string section being particularly good. She also reads dedications to some of her most devoted fans. 

Having played the entire album in full, she moved on to other material,  covering a Glen Campbell song and "Could it be Magic" by Barry Manilow, playing her favourite songs from her other work. She even went live on Facebook to share the night with her fans who couldn't make it.

At the end, the other acts came back on to singalong and they finished lining up and kicking their legs to what I thought was the This is Your Life theme (correct me if I'm wrong).

The only fan to stick out tonight was the one being wafted by the woman sitting to my wife's left, a proper Southern belle if ever I did see one. My, she waved that thing like she was having continuous hot flushes (which wouldn't have been possible given her age, unless she'd really gone to town on the HRT). 

Sorry, I don't have a setlist.

Not a lot of photos as it didn't seem appropriate to go overboard in such a venue.

Ticket Price £34 each 

(booking fee £7.80, transaction fee £2.85)

Terry Logan

The Eves

Horse showing off her Lifetime Achievement Award.