Yorkshire 30 Years Ago – (mishaps and mayhem with ‘Fancy Man’ Paul Tonkinson.)

Now I am a self-confessed ‘Grinch’ when it comes to Stand-up comedy: I don’t get it; it’s not funny; and even the best one liners are generally lost on me! According to Taflinger, humour must appeal to the intellect rather than the emotions, which could be a clue as to my humourless state, as I am more in favour of engaging emotionally with performance. At this point, you may be wondering why on earth I went to see Fancy Man, Paul Tonkinson‘s first solo show? Well, in the quest of fairness and open mindedness, I thought I would give comedy one more go. After all, how bad could it be?

Picture a very sparse stage, a meager audience and a broken microphone stand. Take into account that there was no warm up act or compere for the show. Now imagine a rather flustered man in a undersized tweed suit rushing on stage, having just introduced his own act on a voice-over. Envision all this, and you have the opening of Paul Tonkinson’s show at the Alhambra Studio Theatre, on Saturday 9th February. The evening started with a number of ‘mishaps’, and although these were not part of the act (or at least I don’t think they were), they did have their comical side. Firstly, Tonkinson had underestimated his journey time between Birmingham and Bradford by about an hour. Thus, he had literally had to walk into the theatre and straight onto stage. This has got to be a nightmare scenario for any performer. No soundcheck. No warm up. Late. Awkward! Then, if that wasn’t enough, when adjusting his microphone stand, it came apart! It seemed that there was no technical support to sort this, so Tonkinson just had to abandon the whole stand and hand hold his microphone, carefully avoiding the cable as he moved around the stage (I can testify, this is much harder than it appears). So, it was unsurprising that he was a little disconcerted as he began his opening material. He proceeded to spend quite a bit of time talking to members of the audience, I think to size up what kind of crowd we were. We were not giving much away and he mainly talked with a young man in the front row with a mohican and broken leg, and a rather excitable lady from Sleaford.

However, despite all this, once he got going, Tonkinson’s delivery was good. He came across laid back and anecdotal (apart from the swearing that he used as punctuation). There was a mixture of great, and not so great material. I liked his impression of a French skiing instructor and his inept students, but was was less excited by his impressions of Northerners, which seemed more in keeping with Yorkshire thirty years ago. I liked his references to his rapper child and his environmentally-friendly Scrooge-like tendencies. I was less in favour of the predictable gender battle around sex and housework. On the whole, Tonkinson was witty and had a likeable style. He made good use of the stage and had a convincing physicality. He created characters reminiscent of comics such as Frank Spencer,and Rene Artois from the television series Allo Allo and especially resonant of the flat capped Yorkshire men of The Wheel Tappers and Shunters social club. I think Tonkinson could go one of two ways with this material: either exaggerate the 70’s and 80’s comic references to an extreme, or go for the more original and insightful material alluded to in his blurb. Either way, the audience were on his side in Bradford and enjoyed the show. Me, less so, but then I am a Grinch!

Fancy Man continues its Uk Tour throughout February and March.

Zoe Parker is a choreographer and dance artist who blogs about culture, dance and wellbeing.

She is one part of @yorkslifeaqua a dry land synchronised swimming team coming to a water feature near you.