It finally happened, after almost a full year after booking the tickets to see my favourite comedian I got to actually go to the show. On Wednesday 18th October 2017 I travelled by two trains, on my own for the first time, to Sheffield where I was to see Greg Davies live in the flesh. I could sum the show up in just two words. Those words are magically hilarious.
My friend and I were waiting around for the show to start, he wasn’t going to be accompanying me that night. I was, as my mum called me, Billy-No-Mates for the evening. After a walk of the town we circled back to the City Hall only to find a queue beginning to form to get into the show so I joined the queue and was soon let into the show much earlier than I expected but oh well! I was just happy to be there. I of course bought myself a t-shirt to commemorate the evening and now wish I had bought a programme but ah well, the shirt is fantastic and I donned it to my tattoo session the following Saturday.
After 50 or so minutes of waiting and seeing Greg and the supporting act sticking their heads out of the wings to see how full the theatre was getting the supporting act entered the stage. His name was Barry Castagnola and I’d never heard of him before, I’ll be honest. But after that night I was actual happy I remembered his name as he was a very funny guy and I was quickly looking up more of his work online when I should have been sleeping.
The twenty or so minutes with him flew by and we were given a fifteen minute interval in which I wish I had rushed to the toilet with all the others but I instead stayed rooted to my seat, paranoid about not peeing in time and being caught walking in when Greg was out on stage and fainting from sheer shock.
After the interval Greg came out onto the stage to R Kelly’s Ignition, which has subsequently been in my head since the show, and the show truly began. It’s always odd to see the people you admire, and consider celebrities, in the flesh. You actually see them as real people and you aren’t just looking at them through a screen, they are there in front of you. It was a good experience to see him there but holy hell is he tall! I knew he was 6 ft 8 but actually seeing him really puts it all into perspective.
I’ve seen a lot of Greg’s material before, I’ve watched his other tours and Live at The Apollo, seen him on comedy shows and his own shows like Man Down so I had a good idea of what to expect. He in no way dropped the ball with this one. The material was amazing and had me silently giggling (due to me having a cough I couldn’t laugh as I actually wanted to so I had to make do) and the best part about it was that it had him laughing as well. So many times an accent went awry and not only was the whole audience laughing but so was he which just made it feel a bit more human.
If you can still grab tickets to this show I recommend you do and if you haven’t seen his work before maybe look it up before going so you know what to expect. You should really go just to see the song he made in honour of his dad in welsh, possibly the oddest thing I have ever seen/listened to in my life. Also let nobody ever say that Greg’s Chris Eubank impression is not 100% spot on, something he was happy to prove those that did not approve of the impression wrong. I am still to this day haunted by not only the story of B.T. (Blue Ted) but the appearance of him at the end of the show.
Books, Movies and Life 