Playing to what would be called in football terms a ‘home’ crowd, there’s pretty much belly laughs from the moment Shuttleworth steps onto the Tyne Theatre stage tonight.
Yet whilst such an unadulterated appreciation of any comedian provides a ‘no chance of failure’ atmosphere, the worrying reaction is that such a safety net can remove any level of risk for the comedian and make life easy. “Why exhaust myself looking for humour when I can stick to a successful script”?
Luckily, there’s no sense of complacency tonight from Shuttleworth creator Graham Fellows who counterpoints the performance of fan favourite tunes like A1111, Relatives in Rotherham, and Midweek (which are received like Ivor Novello’s) with a performance that stays centred and searches for/reacts to the smallest of moments with superb in-character comedic asides.
Fellows could have cruised on autopilot tonight but fair play to him for pushing himself into finding original moments of comedy.
