Review: Rhod Gilbert at Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall

Sep 14 2010 by Jo Henwood, Chester Chronicle

RHOD GILBERT/Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool

REVIEW/by JO HENWOOD

CELEBRITY stalking is not a usual family pastime of ours but during a week-long holiday in South Wales this summer, we bumped into comedian Rhod Gilbert three times.

He was spotted walking along the promenade in Mumbles, swimming in the sea at Caswell Bay and strolling the coastal path to Langland - with a blonde, if anyone’s interested.

Imagine my disappointment then, when Wales’s Mr Angry refused an interview with me in advance of his sell-out show at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall (September 11 and 12).

And imagine my shock when mid-turn he announces that he hates swimming and hasn’t been in the water since he was 12. Liar! I thought his stories were all true but now I doubt that his mother actually has a torch with the power of a million candles. And I bet he really does know that 1 tog (duvet rating) is roughly equivalent to the insulation provided by one broad sheet newspaper in dry conditions.

Gilbert doesn’t like journalists, so maybe it was nothing personal, and his opening gambit included some very rude comments about our sister paper The Liverpool Echo and a haddock.

His show, Rhod Gilbert and The Cat that Looked like Nicholas Lyndhurst, is all about his anger management issues, interwoven with his usual trivial observations about washing machines, Hoovers, life-saving and the women/men relationship debate. The title was created to annoy an ardent fan who always brings Gilbert a gift related to the title of his show.

Gilbert is not a relaxing man to watch - his gravelly voice has me worrying about nodes on his larynx and he is very angry about everything. He drinks throughout his performance (those nodes again) which makes me tense and I’m sure I’ve heard (hee-urd as he says) the one about the life-saving before.

But he does makes me laugh. His ad-libs are even funnier than the script, including an interaction with a 13-year old in the audience (“what have your parents got line up for you tomorrow night - a hard core porn movie?) and a finale loosely based on his Ryanair sketch.

Be prepared to see a lot more of Gilbert, whose excuse for the non-interview was that he has just signed a deal with the BBC. Bet he’ll be holidaying further afield next year!