Rhod Gilbert, Cliffs Pavillion

Last night, as my Facebook status may have hinted, I was an excited little bunny rather keen to see one of our favorite comedians, Rhod Gilbert, play live at the Cliffs Pavillion.  Now, usually, Kellie has to work on a Wednesday, so would have been a case of her getting in at 5pm, rushing around, getting sorted, then flying back out the door to get to Westcliff in time.

However, in a stroke of genius, she managed to wrangle the day off.  Result.  So, once the kids were shipped off to school, Kellie spent an hour doing her hair, makeup, debating on what top to wear and so on, and we shifted off not long after 9am.

First stop, Basildon Town Centre, where she had to collect her umbrella (It's England, it's September - you work it out!) then we had breakfast at McDonalds, popped into a couple of shops, then headed to my mum to see her, have lunch, and look at her new car.

Home made soup, french stick and coffee is ideal for British Septembers don't ya know.

The new car is excellent and very sporty, a Chevrolet Spark which is very flash.

By mid afternoon, we decided to make tracks towards Southend, hopped on a train and went and played in the seaside arcades for an hour or two.  Penny Machines, House of the Dead, and the highlight, Dan on a Dance Mat.  You may laugh, but I am quite good thank you very much ;)

Plus, the arcade was empty, so you know, no one to stare...

With my tummy muttering about lack of food for a few hours, we headed on over to the theatre where Kellie had booked us a table in the resturant, and we proceeded to have some drinks, and sat eating a very nice curry followed by some very very nice Lemon Meringue Pie.  A few more drinks, and it was time to take our seats...

Now, as my previous post pointed out, the tickets we got were flagged as "Restricted View" but were the last Kellies mum could get for my birthday.  Her and Kellie were quite worried about them to be honest, but I was quite happy to be there regardless.  The lady in the box office said that the sound crew are set up in front of the seats, which meant equipment stacks and staff moving around...

So, we entered, we sat and... No Sound Crew.  In fact, we were sitting at the front of a walk way so legroom aplenty for your very tall author!  And, as we were slightly elevated, we could see over the head of every Thomas, Richard and Harriett there, straight to the stage!

After a bit, a different comedian came onto the stage, Lloyd Langford - another Welshman, but not as angry ;)  He was out for about half an hour, and seemed very funny - he had the audience laughing, and had clearly looked into the area he was performing which had everyone in stitches...  Especially when he made mention to Canvey Island being like the Wild West and covered in gun smoke!

Interval (and more drinks) came and went, and we sat down and waited...  Lights down, and out he came.

Oh my goodness, I have not laughed so hard in a long time.  If you've never seen him do his stand up thing, then you are really missing out, and I suggest you look for the Award Winning Mince Pie DVD first.  Last nights show - The Cat That Looked Like Nicholas Lyndhurst - was absolutely hilarious.  He's a very funny man, and the situations he finds himself in, and how he deals with them...

He's very very quick too, and with people shouting things out, some comedians either A) ignore it, B) struggle to answer back, or C) snap back right away and keep going with it.  He was very much in C.  Halfway through, some guy started giving him loads of shit...  Called out something like "You were shit when I last saw you, and you're still shit"

"Well f$ck off then!" came the reply from the stage...  The guy carried on trying to hurl stuff at him, but Rhod would not let him get a word in edge ways.  The audience were cracking up at the responses and at this bloke he thought he knew what was going on.  As was pointed out, if I was so shit the first time, why the hell did you come back?

Mr Angry Pants stormed out, only to come back in and try again, got another mocking from Rhod, and promptly left for good.  At the end of the show, he even apologised to the audience for the outburst from the bloke.

For however long we were in there laughing, it was excellent from start to finish.  When he started to say "Goodnight, thanks for coming" people started calling out to him to do his duvet sketch or his luggage routine... He refused at first - he was sweating buckets and knackered, but didn't leave the stage.  He was heckling back at the audience, and eventually caved in, but ad-libbed a mixture of the two - which sounds odd, but bloody hell it was funny.

We were really surprised when he said he'd be outside for a while saying Hi, signing autographs and stuff and somehow, we got out quick enough to be right near the front of the line.  Half the audience were in the queue behind us, so YAY for timing!

The outcome of a bloody good day out? Both our tickets signed, and a picture of my favorite girlie with one very very funny man!