By Gina Harris
Rob Beckett is an English stand-up comedian and actor, best known for being a co-host on the ITV2 spin-off show I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! NOW and 8 out of 10 cats, both which I watch religiously so I knew I was going to be in for a great Friday night!
A friendly, southern cheeky chappy with big teeth and blond hair appeared on stage and started using the audience in his introduction, a late comer was asked why he thought it was fine to walk in at 10 past 8 when his ticket clearly states 8pm, a couple who work together who were not romantically involved were questioned about if they would go out on a date together and many more provided material for much of the evening. This is one of the greatest strengths from Beckett as the improvised comedy brought on by his questioning of the audience would put them at ease, build up a great rapport and extract information from them, this created a lot of spontaneous humour and was my favourite part. Beckett was so quick with his responses he barely had time to think about what he was going to say but it flowed so well, he moved seamlessly from joke to joke and never seemed to falter.
The audience was in stitches throughout the two hour performance. with his sketches about ” Christmas being done wrong”, “holiday deals” and ” tumble dryers” These struck a cord with many of us and left us laughing uncontrollably. The stories were based around everyday topics that anyone could encounter but I would have loved to have seen a bit more about Salford in his sketch to make it more personable to the area he was performing in.
Absolutely loved the personal touch at the end of the show that you wouldn’t see from many other comics. Rob was really appreciative of his audience and he did a meet and greet after his performance where he got the opportunity to say a great big thank you for coming. Rob was humble and just shows how his feet are still firmly on the ground.
Photo: Gina with Rob Beckett
