Back in the day, Alistair McGowan’s Big Impression was a firm family favourite in our house. Impressions have a universal appeal that had us all hooting in unison at McGowan and Ronni Ancona’s sketches of the Beckhams’ day-to-day life and domestics of Sven-Goran Eriksson and Nancy Dell’Olio.
It was therefore odd, if exciting, for me to watch Damn Labels. For one thing, McGowan is alone onstage. For another, he is not in costume and must switch from persona to persona through segues not scene changes. The impressions are more vocal than visual. Some things are the same, however. The show is clearly painstakingly researched, the impressions are entirely accessible and maintain their universal charm and, above all, Alistair McGowan is fantastic at what he does.
As a sports fan, he made sure there were football, tennis and snooker references aplenty. To my delight, David Beckham made an appearance. We also joined Alex Ferguson on his weekend supermarket shop and, in a wonderful collision of prime time TV staples, Match of the Day met The Great British Bake Off.
Sport and Saturday night television are safe bets for recognisable impressions, but that is not to say McGowan wasn’t prepared to live dangerously. We saw Nigel Slater get a bit hot under the collar when reminiscing about plums, we were privy to Terry Wogan’s sex life and Jack Dee went off on a delightfully irrelevant tangent about biscuits. Remembering his stint on Spitting Image, McGowan went from pop cultural to political, but not for long. He apologised for the lack of satire, but there was certainly no shortage of astute observations here.
Damn Labels, so called because McGowan needed a title before he’d thought up a show, is a delightful mix of puns and people, with a hefty dose of digression that makes Alistair McGowan, whoever he may be, all the more likeable and unendingly entertaining.
