On the day the Nation went to the polls for the General Election, it was heartening for comedy fans to find a break from all the political chaos in the form of Rob Beckett, the self-confessed “mouth from the South”, who was playing the second of what will eventually be four dates at the York Barbican on this extensive run which is already booking through to mid-2020.
With not a B****t gag in sight, Beckett spent almost ninety minutes talking us through his life as a man who has married somebody “posh”. As you can imagine, coming from a family that is part decent, hard-working, working class folk and part, in Beckett’s words “absolute scum”, this has thrown Beckett into a world of experiences, situations and challenges that form the basis of the hilarious material for the Wallop show.
Coming from a family who go to the kind of weddings where you bring your own food, Beckett has entered the posh world of family outings to the theatre, skiing trips and Christmas present buying hell. From fancying drag queens in Kinky Boots where he announces to his mother-in-law that he “has got a boner”, to being introduced to Coq Au Vin, you get the feeling that the working class Beckett must be going through absolute torture on a daily basis as he tries his best to fit in with his adopted family.
It’s not all jokes about his new life though. Elsewhere the funnyman jokes about his weight and getting ill at Disneyland while a trip to see Mary Poppins II pushes the comedian to breaking point as he snaps “if I’d lost nine million quid, I know I wouldn’t spend 45 mins looking for a kite and a singalong!”
Yes, Beckett’s routines might be easy to digest and don’t involve too much thinking about but, given that outside the front doors of this venue, the rest of the UK is in a panic about who is going to be running the country for the next four years, watching the cheeriest man in comedy recall a torturous trip to Center Parcs in February is the perfect way to forget about it all for a couple of hours.
For more information on a full list of dates and tickets visit: www.robbeckettcomedy.com
