JOSH Widdicombe went through the preliminaries on Sunday like everyone who has a gig in York. It's a posh, northern, historic city, he said.
Unlike most comedians, however, he didn’t get an easy start as hecklers chose to answer questions for people he had tried to engage with.
Although hecklers are normally disruptive, Widdicombe took them in his stride and really worked well with incorporating them into his set.
Three minutes in and the show had started properly, with his relatable observational comedy style already in full swing. Despite it only being October, Widdicombe managed to work in Christmas nicely, talking about the types of cards that some relatives send, of the soft watercolour type, featuring two footballers going in for a tackle or a golfer in tartan trousers teeing off.
He touched on his experience of covering the Paralympics in Rio and being mistaken for Ed Sheeran by a street food vendor. He talked about his flight and flying in general, pointing out there are more WH Smiths at Heathrow than there are runways which, as he suggests, makes it more of a shopping centre with good transport links than an airport.
Among his observations, he recalled his upbringing in Devon, discussing the pain of bunk-bed ladders and being the only ten year old with a Filofax. Or a funfax, in his case, as his had interesting, albeit sexist facts, with additional inserts available, including joke pages that had a page dedicated to "udderly hilarious" jokes about cows, which he gave us the pleasure of sharing in its highlights.
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