Rob BrydonIpswich RegentYOU can get away with an awful lot if you're nice to people.In fact you can be perfectly beastly to them if you do it in a warm and gentle way, as Rob Brydon demonstrated last night.

Dominic Castle

Rob Brydon

Ipswich Regent

YOU can get away with an awful lot if you're nice to people.

In fact you can be perfectly beastly to them if you do it in a warm and gentle way, as Rob Brydon demonstrated last night.

Brydon the comic actor is very much a man of the moment, rarely away from our TV screens as Uncle Bryn in Gavin and Stacey, but here he was on the bare boards doing stand-up with only a guitarist and a fine repertoire of impersonations for company.

He opened up with some beautiful observations on middle-class values before getting to know the audience, including Alwyn the lighthouse electrician who turned out to be a countryman of his.

Being Welsh formed something of a backbone to the show, with a great visual gag on how his Celtic genes took over when his fourth child was born - think of the great Welsh scrum-halves waiting for the ball to pop out of the scrum and you'll get the picture.

He is also a masterful impersonator, equal to the varied vocals of Michael Caine, Terry Wogan, Ronnie Corbett and Al Pacino, the latter reading a somewhat profane version of The Gruffalo. And of course there was the obligatory Tom Jones.

Being Welsh, Brydon likes to sing and does have a bit of a voice. We enjoyed the words of the Dad's Army theme tune sung to the Carpenters' Yesterday Once More - try it yourself in the bath - and he ended up with an improvised song taking in Henry VIII, a teaspoon, Alwyn the lighthouse electrician and Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, a tremendous piece of quick thinking.

Unusually these days, his act contained very little effing and jeffing, Pacino impersonation apart, and was none the worse for it.

Dom Castle