Just been to the gig at the Liverpool Arena tonight. Shockingly bad. The poor guy died on his arse.
A review:
He came on and did all his unfunny characters and Partridge.
1st one was Pauline Calf. She sang some 'supposed-to-be' funny song about the Marriot hotel. Not funny. Did a routine with some sexual innuendo. Not funny.
In between his character changes were some weird surreal character acts. 1st one was some guy with Tourettes. 2nd one was a guy who sang making seal noises. 3rd one was God and the devil as a couple. Beyond awful. Quite possibly the worst attempts at comedy I have ever seen. Nobody laughed, it really was piss poor.
2nd Coogan character was Saxondale. He did a slideshow on the 'dangers of drugs'. The occasional titter, but mostly unfunny.
3rd Coogan character was Duncan Thickett. F***ing awful. Coogan was getting heckled by some knobheads at this point, but really, he deserved it.
4th Coogan character was Paul Calf. A couple of mildly amusing gags, but generally nowhere near as funny as Calf has been in the past.
2nd half consisted mostly of Alan Partridge (around 30 mins). Some occasionally amusing moments, again all based on a slideshow and messing around with a computer screen behind him. He did a chatshow bit that was unfunnier than anything ever was on Knowing Me Knowing You. Then he left. You could literally hear people saying, 'Is that it?'
No it wasn't. The finale was jaw-dropping. Coogan, 'as himself', doing an incredibly self-indulgent musical number (with slideshow) about how wonderful he is, all the films and tv shows he's done, all the famous people he's met, how the papers give him a hard ride, etc. It was meant to be Ricky Gervais-esque tongue-in-cheek self-praise, but it was shockingly unfunny and out of place.
And that was it. No encore. People clapped half-heartedly but no-one stood. Then everyone piled out as quick as they could.
And I'm a big Coogan fan, with most of his stuff he's ever done on DVD, all the Partidge series, everything.
One of the most disappointing shows I have ever been to. The script was poor, the performance was poor (he kept looking at lines on his hand, or cue cards scattered around). The format totally didn't work. Duncan Thickett isn't funny. Saxondale is a character in a sitcom, he doesn't work as a stand up. The Calfs have had better days. Partridge was a let down and the end was up-his-own-arse [Poor language removed].
Still, by my estimation, £30 a ticket x 4000ish = £800k. Not bad for a nights work. At least **** Turpin wore a mask. The sad thing was, Coogan KNEW it was [Poor language removed]. I was near the front and you could tell in his face that he knew he was dying.
Avoid the inevitable tour DVD.
