The Evans Almighty Era

On thursday evening i travelled down south to the Brighton Centre to watch one of my favourite comedians Lee Evans perform his 2008 tour - 'BIG'. The performance of Lee was as ever energetic with him sweating within minutes of coming onto the stage prompting the phrase 'i need fucking guttering'.

The best part of Lee Evans performance's has allways been the acting with his funny face pulling and extrovert body movements which for this tour was somewhat toned down. The show began with Lee having a panic attack in his changing room which goes slightly overboard after he sweats too much and causes his changing room to flood before pulling the plug.

The arrival on stage was inevitably met by a rapture of applause, intrigued into what his first line would be to start the laughter filled evening i was disappointed when i heard him re-use the phrase 'you could fart in here and two years later the roof cleaners will be like... cooor.. have you farted'. My first thoughts were oh dear he's going to use old material but thankfully that was all he reused. He then went on to refer to the giant screens behind him which i found incredibly off putting through out the whole performance as i often found myself watching him on the screens rather than him on stage, taking away the 'live' aspect of the performance.

He stuck to the tried and tested formula of discussing - sport, road rage, and marriage of which he puts his on spin on. Within sport he tackled the issue of football players diving and the extroadinary amounts of money they earn which was highly entertaining. But as ever, the topic of marriage was the best commenting on observations of his own wife and of other relationships. He tried something a little different with a two minute quickfire portrait of speed dating to divorce which recieved much appraisal but at times was often hard to keep up with.

He touches upon many issues about his relationship with his wife such as shopping where he takes a personal but hilarious jibe at Trinny and Susannah using the phrase 'she turns into trinny and tranny' to which the audience burst into laughter and he goes on to explain 'well one of them have a look, thats all i'm saying, have a look'.

He ended with his trademark Bohemian Rhapsody mime which was entertain however i would have prefered something new and original. Despite the lack of originalty i was still left with a saw jaw and along with the other members of the audience gave him a standing ovation. So his method of comedy stand up does still work however i feel it is now out of touch from the up and coming comedians of today and he must do much more if he is going to compete with the likes of Michael MacIntyre, Frankie Boyle and Russel Howard.