Sunday, January 26

Punt and Dennis, Nottingham Playhouse

This show felt catapulted direct from a Footlights revue as the boys reprised their trademark roles of Steve Punt as the straight man – with Hugh Dennis amusing the sell-out crowd with his knockabout approach.

It was for all the world a Radio 4-style audience in on this wet Friday night, and Punt and Dennis may have been surprised to see so much grey hair (or no hair) in their demographic.

But with radio's The Now Show their main satirical vehicle and Hugh Dennis involved in gentler televisual comedy pursuits, perhaps they come to expect that.

Clipboard-holding Steve ran through their carefully-chosen topics in time-honoured style as the perfect foil for Hugh's commentary. There was a plethora of digital television channels to describe, such as the curiously named ITV2+1 – surely that's just ITV3? A smattering of Jimmy Savile jokes “Half my act's gone”, says Hugh – while softly singing Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Yewtree.

Easier to identify with what people are overheard saying while shopping at Waitrose: “Do we need parmesan for both houses, darling?”, or how we're suckered into buying from the shopping channels when we get home tipsy.

The duo were here three years ago and while it's nice to enjoy some of their best-loved material again, there was a lingering feeling that too much of this current show was reworked.

We'd seen before Hugh asking us to laugh in the style of a pirate, or a Frenchman, and while World of Wine was a superb ending to the evening, it felt like another digital channel repeat.

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Nottingham is full of fun, according to the traditional football chant. It's full of a few other things, too, so while I welcome comments, don't bother adding anything that won't get published...