“Where else would you rather be?” asks Dave Spikey as he walks on stage to a surprisingly small audience.
Despite the turn-out, he begins his set determined to have the place laughing and it doesn’t take him long to succeed.
“A lion walks into a bar and asks for a pint … followed by some pork scratchings, to which the barman asks “What’s with the big paws?”’
From then on there comes titters of laughter and polite applause for the next 40 minutes as Spikey brings, among others, his wife into proceedings.
“She wanted to go somewhere for her birthday where food is prepared before you,” he says with a shake of his head. “Apparently Subway doesn’t count.”
Over-tanned holiday makers and hen parties don’t avoid his wrath.
“There’s evidently a fine line between having a golden tan and looking like you’ve been rolled in gravy granules” he quips as a few women in the audience hold their head in their hands trying to quell their laughter. Not keen on social media or reality TV, he continues to poke fun at the ‘star’ girls of a certain discount company before closing out the first half with tales about his love of newspaper headlines.
Holding up a select few of his favourites, even he can’t resist chuckling as he reads: “RSPCA help Bury animals.”
The second half gets off to a slightly slower start, but the laughs keep coming. Directing his attention to a few of the ‘Punchlines’ displayed on a screen during the interval he launches straight back in with a story from school when he and two other students had to sing a song with a ‘dog’ reference – it’s perhaps unsurprising that ‘Scooby Dooby Doo’ was one of the choices.
Just as things are slowing down again, Spikey saves his show by conducting an encore about song-lyrics. Des’ree’s ‘Life’ Cilla Black’s ‘I Can Sing A Rainbow’ and Roy Orbison’s ‘I Drove All Night’ all come under his comedic microscope.
He exists the stage to a strong cheers and a somewhat subdued, but rather entertained audience.
