Luke Benson and David Hardcastle are bringing back the Working Men’s Club; pints and pork scratchings at the ready. Look out for some good old fashioned fun with a show packed full of Northern banter. Guest acts are interspersed with darts, bingo, a raffle and a rendition of ‘Sweet Caroline’; it really does feel as though you’ve stepped back in time into an 80s Geordie pub.
Benson and Hardcastle are full of energy and draw the audience in immediately, getting everyone involved. They start with a game of darts and although this seems like a fun pub game, in practice the darts didn’t stick to the board and it just felt a bit slap-dash. On a small TV screen, a slideshow was put together comprised of film clips featuring Benson and Hardcastle. A particular favourite was a video of the two dressed up in red bikinis re-enacting a ‘Bay Watch’ scene. However, with a large amount of technical difficulties, the two might have been better off discarding it altogether.
The two comedians themselves worked well together. Both their individual stand-up sections were witty and well executed (the same cannot be said for all of their guests). This is a truly English evening and not to everyone’s taste – the American couple in the front row were rather bewildered and bemused.
A fun yet rather bumbling evening, the pair held it together with their charm and ability to laugh at themselves. It was made all the better by the fact that you can win two pork pies in the raffle. If that isn’t an incentive to get down the pub, then I don’t know what is.
