Just got back from seeing Jack Dee at the Edinburgh Play House, it was superb, a great night out.
I drove into Edinburgh directly from work and met up with Mandy at a Tapas restaurant that we’ve enjoyed eating at before. The meal actually wasn’t that great this time, but the company was fantastic (I have to say that, she’s my wife)! We then went for a drink in a nearby pub followed by a wander for a couple more metres down the road to the theatre for a thoroughly good laugh, Mandy was even in tears of laughter a number of times! Jack was much better than I expected, I kind of expected it to be a bit of a rip-off, barely an hour of observational humour and tired old jokes already seen on the TV. But no, it was two hours of very funny commentary on life, funny situations and the occasional groan of revulsion at something disgusting (but very funny), and lasted well over two hours (with an interval to catch your breath).
If Jack’s coming to a venue near you, go see him, you won’t be disapointed.
Just before getting into standup comedy I was chatting to a long-standign comic who had begun his career just after jack Dee had broken into the mainstream. He described an evening where Jack gave him a lift home from a late gig and Jack described his early days.
Despite his current on-stage persona (though he has softened a little these days, Jack used to do a comic character called ‘Mr Happy’, who was… happy.
He died on stage, many times. It was not until he decided to be more himdelf that his career started to take off and that famous grumpy persona appeared.
The whole idea of jack being ‘Mr. Happy’ makes me snigger.
neil…
Posted by neil on June 6th, 2005.