Reviews

The Irishman has a rich pedigree as a stand up comedian - he arrived on the scene to become the youngest winner of the Perrier award in 1990 and previous tours have seen him selling out venues much larger than the Corn Exchange.

But this counted for nothing on 11 October 2007, when approximately 100 people turned up to see him perform in Ipswich. That's about 10 per cent of the Grand Hall's capacity.

Out of the limelight

The Right Side Of Wrong is Hughes's first stand up tour in almost a decade.

Back then the audience included a large number of teenage admirers, many of whom will have followed his diversion away from the stage and on to TV - where he captained a team on Never Mind The Buzzcocks before acting in The Last Detective and most recently as 'Pat The Love Rat' in Coronation Street.

So perhaps the diminished audience number is due to people having forgotten about his live performances or Sean's Show, or being too young to have witnessed either in the first place. In Ipswich there was only a handful of under 25s in the audience.

On to the performance, and age itself is an ever present issue with Hughes. His 1995 tour was named Sean Hughes Is Thirty Somehow and now, at 41, the issues of growing older and being single remain important to him.

"I thought when I was 41 I would be married with kids. Well, to be honest, I thought I'd be divorced with weekend access," he says before asking how the male subjects of televised famine appeals manage to build a family whilst he can't. "Surely I've got more to offer than him?"

Not much is sacred in Hughes's routine, with the premise presumably being that if he offends everyone then people won't feel isolated.

A late comer is asked if he'd been out killing prostitutes, a subject which seems to have become a staple for visiting comedians.

The McCanns are also touched upon whilst on the subject of parents showing him photos of their children: 'I'll take a cautionary glance if it says 'missing' underneath'.

The Corn Exchange itself comes under fire for being a bad venue which resembles a school hall. In its defence, I'd argue the opposite is true. The venue has great potential and if anything is underused. In the mid 90's it hosted bands such as Blur to great effect. Why isn't this tradition being continued?

Strangely enough though, despite the same hall hosting a beer festival only last month, audience members are not allowed to drink from glasses during the show.

This charming man

As a live performer Hughes can be a real charmer - he passes a plate of biscuits into the audience to create a "community spirit" and throws Tic Tacs to people after having a chat with them. A missing cat poster from London is also shown to the audience, "just to widen the search".

All of which make it a joy to be in his presence. His jokes are consistently funny, whether they're drawn out stories from his life or quick one liners: "I went into one of those cheesy bars the other day. Or a delicatessen as you'd call it."

But he seems to place so much pressure on himself that he often appears upset when he doesn't get the reaction he was hoping for from the audience, or if he feels the need to explain what the joke was about. This is especially apparent when it's one of his big hitters.

"Earlier this year, the police arrested six Muslims in Birmingham - is this ringing any bells? All I'd say is, if you're a Muslim and you live in Guildford, don't hang out in fours."

Golden age for Ipswich?

It's been a great year to be a fan of stand up comedy and to live in Ipswich. Russell Brand, Billy Connolly and Ricky Gervais have already sold out The Regent, the town has a new monthly comedy night in Jokers, and Alan Carr, Frank Skinner and Sean Lock are to visit before the end of the year.

With so much on offer, maybe people are being forced to pick their gigs carefully. At £16 a ticket maybe Sean Hughes was asking for too much from those with a casual interest.

Or maybe the town's population simply isn't big enough to support all these events. But then again this is a place where 20,000 people happily spend £25 plus every fortnight to watch Ipswich Town play football.

It's the same with live music, where the town struggles to generate enough interest which allows promoters to attract bands who aren't yet capable of filling The Regent or Portman Road. Maybe the introduction of University Campus Suffolk will eventually change this?

Either way, I'd imagine that if people don't support shows such as Sean Hughes then next year's comedy offerings may not be as rich as in 2007.

This is all based on the presumption that Sean Hughes is genuinely funny and people were wrong to miss him. Humour is, after all, subjective.

But the impression I got from leaving the Corn Exchange was that those who were present were rewarded with a memorable, if slightly strange, night out.

Sean Hughes is a superb stand up comedian and hopefully one day he'll return to a bigger audience. Either that or he'll make another series of Sean's Show.