Trump and BBC4 in stand-up show
THE Middleton Arena stage is set up for the Hoedown to come, with a drum kit and array of guitars.
Rich Hall introduces himself off stage, before striding out, resplendent in a grey fedora – a present from his wife, so that he could look ‘like one of the bystanders in that photograph of the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald.’
In the first half of his show, Rich treats the packed audience, many of whom have dragged themselves inside on an unusually balmy Middleton evening, to his sharp, well-honed observations, the antidote to the doom and gloom coming out of his homeland.
The Donald Trump jokes have been condensed into a hilariously vitriolic diatribe that expresses his increasing embarrassment at the current so-called ‘leader of the free world’.
His assault on British culture is equally sharply observed, but tempered by an obvious affection.
He contrasts Trump’s response to gun-related atrocities in high schools of ‘arm the teachers’ with the Brit at the London Bridge atrocity who stolidly walked away from the mayhem ‘protecting his treasured glass of golden amber liquid while shouting at the terrorist over his shoulder.’
Rich takes great delight in how we buy insurance, ‘on the advice of an array of stuffed animals’ such as ‘the say-so of a meerkat and a bulldog nodding at you from the back of a car.’
He is equally bemused by the existence of BBC4, with its schedule of ‘a two-hour documentary of Mongolan throat singing followed by a film nobody has ever seen with sub-titles in braille.’
The laughter is made even louder by the knowledge that Rich himself makes documentaries for the same channel.
He engages with the front row to garner material for the improvised songs to come, skilfully dealing with an overenthusiastic fan/heckler and discovering a couple who are together but don’t seem sure about it, an engineer, a retired policeman and a mentor, not a profession Rich is aware of – he seems more comfortable when it is translated as ‘counsellor.’
After the interval, Rich reappears with guitarist Rob Childs and drummer Mark Hewitt, ‘two of the best musicians within their price range.’
He takes the audience members’ stories and