On Sunday night I went to see John Shuttleworth. The review was in today's Nottingham Evening Post (as I still call it), but here is the full on version that I wrote before having to edit it down to 200 words.

There might be people who don’t know that ‘versatile singer/songwriter from Sheffield, South Yorkshire’ John Shuttleworth is actually a character created by the artist formerly known as Jilted John - Graham Fellows. Such is Fellows’ knack for character comedy that John Shuttleworth has become a household name in his own right. Tripping onto the stage still sucking his pre-show Werthers Original, the first piece of business was to criticise the Playhouse for using Hessian as the backdrop for that play about mice and men. The mice could of course chew up the Hessian you see.

The show of two halves never once suffered the dip in energy or quality that sometimes happens at a comedy show, especially when you’re relying on an alter-ego to see you through. Accompanied by his organ and backing tracks, songs such as ‘Life Is Like A Salad Bar’ and ‘Smells Like White Spirit’ were interspersed with tales of his domestic life back home. His wife Mary, a dinner lady, and his next door neighbour and sole agent Ken Worthington were mentioned in the running theme involving his banishment to the shed for practising his music, and wanting to be allowed back into the house.

Crossing musical genres, through grunge to reggae, (“but not jazz”), all the crowd pleasing classics were there. Opening the second half with a rousing sing-along of ‘Austin Ambassador Y Reg’, and encoring with a medley of favourites including the legendary ‘I Can’t Go Back To Savoury Now’, this was crowd pleasing, clean comedy at its best. Playing an incompetent is harder than it looks, and for that alone Shuttleworth takes his place beside Tommy Cooper’s failed magic, and Les Dawson’s bad piano playing.