Dave SpikeyLaughter is the Best MedicineIpswich RegentI MUST declare an interest up front. I came to last night's show thoroughly prepared to dislike Dave Spikey without ever having seen the man.

Dominic Castle

Dave Spikey

Laughter is the Best Medicine

Ipswich Regent

I MUST declare an interest up front. I came to last night's show thoroughly prepared to dislike Dave Spikey without ever having seen the man.

Some years ago I was trapped for two hours in my own home by his doppelganger, who was trying to sell me double glazing. We just could not persuade the git to go and I had to throw his stuff out of the front door in the end. He shouted his final, final offer through the letterbox.

The real Dave Spikey is an old-fashioned Lancashire comic whose schtick has been honed by years of hard graft in Northern clubs. Even the way he came on and left the stage was straight up, no-nonsense stuff - no fanfare, no interval, no curtain call, no encore. He's not huge on audience interaction either, apart from his closing pop quiz analysis of stupid lyrics, which was just as well, given the disappointing size of the crowd.

That shouldn't give an impression that it was a show into which little effort was put; just that Spikey provides a more traditional stand-up bare-bones comedy routine reliant on decent patter and good jokes.

His themes and targets were nothing out of the ordinary; the local newspaper, daytime TV, fat people (dobbers, in Lancashire vernacular apparently), jazz and his schooldays, but he kept the flow going nicely.

His time in the haematology labs of the NHS gave him another vein (apologies) to explore and he also came up with an innovative way to deal with the problem of having a dog's jaws clamped round your leg.

He also came up with some japes for the audience to try at home, or rather in Debenhams. If the sale rail starts talking to you you're not going mad; it'll just be a Spikey fan.

And at least he didn't lock the doors and try and sell us double glazing.

Dom Castle