Greg Davies - A review

Greg Davies @ Salisbury City Hall on Wednesday October 24

By Jamie Hill

Greg Davies is tall. You don't really get how tall until you see him in the flesh. He's a bloody giant.

Salisbury City Hall was pretty damn packed. It was a testament to the comedian's pulling power that it was completely sold out. There were definitely a few Inbetweeners' fans in the house as well as maybe a few fans of his new universally praised series Cuckoo.

Greg, who has also been quite a popular in recent years on the panel show circuit is a naturally funny man, but I didn't realise until this show just how self-deprecating he is.

I like self-deprecating. It's a sign that someone doesn't take themselves too seriously that they're able to spot the absurdity that surrounds us all.

It would be easy to dismiss Greg Davies. At face value he's a Rik Mayall lookalike and sometimes soundalike who has been riding the coat-tails of an immensely popular sitcom. But that would be very unfair as stand-up wise this man definitely could hold his own amongst the best.

As mentioned already with his 'self-deprecatingness' (is that a word?), this was a very personal show. It was called 'The Back of My Mum's Head' for reasons that become quite clear early on. It touched on family, embarrassing fart moments and the amazing things that people say at inappropriate moments. But what it mainly touched on was the loss of that childlike ability to spot absurdity in every moment. And how you need to keep that sense of absurdity even though you're growing up and growing old.

It was also a well planned and well structured show with Greg belying the fact that he was a former teacher using wall charts and other forms of audio-visual aids to tell us exactly what his set was to contain.

There were definitely a few belly laughs to be had especially with a Spaniard fart joke and a bonsai song at the end.

All in all it was a damn good evening put together by a consummate professional showing that he's definitely one of the best on the circuit today.