Don't eat any salt and you won't go bald

The latest in an occasional series of theatre reviews...

Danny Baker - At Last...The Sausage Sandwich Tour : Alban Arena

My first write-up in my home town!  I saw Danny here in 2018 in his second show based around his books and it was a great night and there was obviously going to be a follow-up which I was totally up for seeing...

...but then COVID happened and then asbestos happened (in the Arena) and everything got somewhat delayed, so I was pleased to catch this popping up in my feed sometime last year (which feels like a LONG time ago now) and even more pleased to see tickets were still available.  In the front row!

Well, I'd struggle to say it was the finest seat in the house but I certainly couldn't complain about the risk of having an interrupted view for the evening - which certainly went on for some time.  Danny rocked up on stage at 7:30 (wearing a fez, for no obvious reason) and spent 90 minutes "briefly" revisiting his previous two shows (covering his time at school and in journalism) - "we'll get to the real show soon, I promise".  We then had a 20-30 minute interval (with the biggest queues for the gents I've ever seen at the Arena) and he was back on until 11pm (and it had obviously been made VERY clear to him that there was a curfew) to talk about his time in radio and TV.

And it's safe to say the man didn't stop talking - but I'm not sure he's ever stopped talking, has he?  He's a man who's lead a charmed life (ridiculously so, but I suspect his personal charm might have possibly have contributed here) but most importantly he remembers it in impressive detail (or is at least able to make up plausible details very quickly).  He's maybe a little too happy to tell us how much he's earned from various things he's done, but I can't deny that part of me was interested/intrigued to hear it (£175k for I'm A Celebrity?!?  Seriously?).  

He did tell some great stories though - most of which I can't remember but there was a great one about the guy who wrote the theme tune to Blind Date.  He asked the producer what kind of thing they were looking for and was told that something like the theme to Bewitched would be good.  So he went away and took five weeks holiday, turned the score to Bewitched upside down, fiddled about with it for a bit and handed it in.  And they loved it and paid him £150k for it :-)

Danny ended the show repeating a story from his previous show about how he got together with his wife (Wendy), which involves them running away to Las Vegas and having their photo taken on the roof by Anton Corbijn (who was working for NME at the time - loads of people have worked there over the years) and it's an absolutely gorgeous story which wraps the evening up with a big hug.  They've been together for 43 years and she must absolutely have the patience of an absolute saint (and very high blood pressure).

For those of you that haven't had the pleasure of the mighty Alban Arena, all I can really say about it is that it's dated but perfectly fine - imagine what you think a regional theatre looks like and I'm pretty certain you'll be close.  It's not a thing of beauty, but it serves its purpose well enough.

And that's all I've got to say really - there's only so much you can say about one man on a stage with one prop (a snooker cue, to point at people in his pictures).  He certainly isn't to everyone's taste, but you can't argue with his passion for music, radio and television and this show gave an amusing insight into how they've all affected his life.  Cheers Dan!

King Lear - Impressive, but disappointing
ABBA Voyage - Interesting, but slightly odd