Count Arthur Strong: Leicester Comedy Festival review
By Ciaran Fagan February 14, 2015
This show is billed ‘Somebody Up There Licks Me’. A mistake at the printers apparently.
Obviously, it couldn’t have been Count Arthur’s fault. He never mixes his words up. Oh no.
Former screen and variety star Count Arthur Strong is the creation of writer and actor Steve Delaney.
We learned to love the Count from his Radio Four show a few years back, but he has been refining the character onstage for 20 years of so.
His BBC sitcom, currently in its second season, has, we are guessing, deservedly brought him to a wider audience.
This great stage performance to a packed and appreciative Curve audience is much more the Count his radio fans would have recognised.
The language-mangling which were such a feature of the stage and radio shows, but less so on the TV, come thick and fast and his timing is perfect.
The highlight for us was the ventriloquism act, during which the increasingly inebriated Count argues with his puppet, Sulky Monkey.
His grasp of biblical matters is characteristically sketchy too.
In a ‘sermon’ in the second half of the best part of two hour show he recounted the story of Alan and Evelyn in the Garden of Edam.
The show ended with the Count’s musical tribute to The Beatles, who he was shocked to learn were from Liverpool.
In this show, the Count has two sidekicks. Malcolm – played by Terry Kilkelly – and a stage put-upon stage hand played by Dave Plimmer, who plays Eggy in the TV show.
A great night but one minor gripe. It all ended a little abruptly.
