Review: Frank Skinner (rating 3/5)
Here’s the bad news. If you were hoping to see Frank Skinner’s show at the fringe and haven’t got your ticket yet, you’re out of luck as it’s sold out its entire run. The good news is you’re not really missing much by not being there.
This is a show that has its moments but feels for the most part like it’s treading water, delivering a steady stream of quiet laughs but nothing that will live long in the memory.
Skinner opens the show with the Bruce Forsyth greeting ‘Nice to see you, to see you, nice’, reclaiming it from the late performer so that the catchphrase can live on beyond him. It leads on to a great routine about Forsyth and the decision to leave his ashes under the stage at the London Palladium.
If the rest of the show had followed in a similar style, it would have been a great hour. As it was, it too often sounded like someone telling anecdotes to his mates in a pub, things that friends would laugh at but that wouldn’t really translate to a concert hall without something bigger to hang them on.
The most interesting part of the evening came when a couple told Skinner that they had met when they were on their honeymoon and he probed them for more information about what had happened to the husband and wife they were on their honeymoon with. When a story from an audience member is the most intriguing thing about a show, it’s a sign that the rest of the material isn’t really working as it should.
A bit like a ‘greatest hits’ tour with a couple of new songs thrown in, the end feeling was that you were watching an act that had been better in its heyday when the songs were new. Audiences will come along out of loyalty, but maybe a tribute act would have been more exciting to watch.
Assembly George Square, until 18 August
I’ve just seen Frank Skinner’s show at the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh. This is the extended version of Frank’s Edinburgh Fringe run reviewed in this article. I thought it was brilliant. I’ve seen him many times over the years and this was his best performance. Warm, intelligent and laugh out loud funny.