Bounding onto the stage, in what looked like a last-minute Rupert The Bear costume, the northern comedian, had everyone hooked from the word, well, I can’t actually quote his first word, but let’s say go.
Kicking things off with a nod to the unavoidable “C” word – yes Covid, and the three-year-long cancellations that delayed his visit to Aberdeen, you could tell that the crowd was more than ready to welcome him.
Was he going to base his show around Brexit? Covid? Or anything else that he could have blamed the hold-up on? No. In his own expletive-heavy words, it was to be around his “own self-destruction.”
Jon Richardson had Aberdeen audience sold from the word go
Well, the already chuckling audience was sold.
It was a Sunday night, facing a Scottish crowd that had just collectively fallen into the arms of national defeat (I mean rugby), and you’d better believe that Jon was going to turn this into a Sunday roast. Poor Simon in the audience definitely bore the brunt of this.
Ready to face the backlash, and known for his veganism, the energetic comic immediately launched into a routine about the struggles of opening a pack of tofu that usually only the “plant-based” among us would understand, but impressively made it relatable (and somehow filthy) to all, not least by taking a stab at TV chefs, the Hairy Bikers.
No celebrity was safe from the TV favourite’s sharp tongue
Famous for his regular appearances on shows like A League of Their Own, he quickly had us all in stitches with his savage mickey-taking of everyone from Freddie Flintoff to comfortable shoe enthusiast Jamie Redknapp, with Ant and Dec falling the hardest at the feet of the not at all jealous or petty, lesser-advertised personality.
He has a point though, would you take a bank loan based on the endorsement of a couple of ex-Biker Grove stars?
Soon though, we moved on to the main theme of the show. Mid-life crisis. Something that I think at least 80% of the audience could identify with.
The comedian delivered close-to-the-bone observational comedy at its best
Ever wanted to get a tattoo or go out and buy a motorbike? Well, Jon Richardson has.
Not just to escape the mundane day-to-day reality of being a parent and a husband (and obviously to look cool) but by his own account, to keep his clearly much-adored wife interested.
To me, the sign of a good comedian is when you look around and every nearby couple is looking at each other through the belly-aching laughter saying “that’s us!”, just as I did when my husband glaringly related to the hilarious “you’re hanging the washing up wrong!” anecdote.
I felt seen.
I’m not a parent, and after hearing Richardson’s painfully truthful accounts of what life is like being one, I’ll be honest, it sounds a lot less appealing. But as he effed and jeffed his way through stories of week-long spousal stand-offs over something as trivial as feeding a child a banana, you can’t help but notice that parenthood might just lot more fun than he makes out.
Maverick of comedy pulled out Tom Cruise moves for Aberdeen crowd
You know the life-affirming motorbike that we touched on earlier? Well, we no longer had to imagine what Jon would look like living his middle-aged dreams on one, as he rolled, at a health and safety-approved pace, onto the stage on a hog that was about size appropriate for the vertically challenged comedian. (Vegan) leather jacket-clad, to ring in the second half.
Ripping off the jacket, before ripping back in to the side-splitting show, revealing arms covered with less-than-convincing tattoo “sleeves”, it was even harder than before to take the inescapably inoffensive-looking funnyman seriously as he careered through the rest of the show.
At a dizzyingly speedy rate, that left us feeling like we’d just climbed the rope in gym class at school (if you know, you know, but may rather forget…) the show propelled the audience from laugh to laugh and before we knew it, it was over.
Just six minutes over time, but we’ll forgive him.
Jon Richardson’s tour continues here.
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