IF you saw about 100 folk wearing hi-vis jackets in Parliament Street on Saturday night playing What's The Time Mr Wolf with a middle-aged woman carrying a handbag in the shape of an accordion – that was us!
Or rather, that was Barbara Nice – the "Stockport housewife" with a weakness for bursting into song at random moments and for serious overuse of the adjective "piggin'" – and her audience.
More than 100 people had packed into The Turn Pot spiegeltent in St Sampson's Square to see Barbara bring her 60-minute show, Raffle, back to the Great Yorkshire Fringe for another spin.
The ticket price includes a raffle ticket and Barbara – aka comedian and Phoenix Nights actress Janice Connolly – builds the show around picking out winners for a random set of prizes hidden in her shopping bag.
As she places each prize on a table on the stage – a bottle of Lambrini, a Fray Bentos Pie and a bottle of Dettol among them – she acknowledges what's in all our minds: "I know," she says. "You're all thinking: I don't want to win!"
By sheer force of personality, Barbara (or rather Janice) wins the audience round. As each winner collects their prize, a different song erupts from the loud speaker, and Barbara leads them in a dance. The fun is infectious, and you feel yourself giving into it.
As everyone is singing along to various Cadbury's adverts ("Only the crumbliest, flakiest chocolate..."), Barbara shouts out: "We don't need drugs, this is pig tipping top!"
And we still had Mr Wolf to come.
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