Greg Davies, Theatre Royal, Brighton, April 4 (From The Argus)

Greg Davies, Theatre Royal, Brighton, April 4

11:12am Monday 11th April 2011 in Stage Reviews By Ruth Lumley

Who would have thought a packet of cheeseballs could produce more than an hour’s worth of funny material?

There was a certain charm to the tale which prefixed comedian Greg Davies’s set as he regaled the audience with stories from the different stages of his life.

He may have been suffering from a nasty chest infection on the night, but he didn’t let it interfere with a side-splittingly funny performance.

The act hinged on a single moment in Davies’s past, when the comedian and a friend spent time in Andalucia, Spain. The moment in question concerned throwing, or firing, cheeseballs at a dog that was blocking their path.

From this time when nothing else mattered, all the other stories throughout his life stemmed. Davies took us through his school days, to his time as a teacher and finally to his relationship with his parents and sister.

Each story was told with verve and self-deprecating charm, a flipchart and marker pen integral to hammering home the points he was making.

Sadly, I cannot tell you which tale had me falling out of my chair with laughter because its content – along with most of the stories in the act – were far too rude to repeat in a family newspaper.