On Thursday 8th 2010 I saw Sean Lock live at the Wolves Civic in Wolverhampton.

His tour is called Lockipedia, and it is basically what Shaun knows about ‘stuff’. It has no real theme apart from what goes on in everyday life!

Early On
No real dramatics as Shaun came out, a little grin and a funny walk to the middle of the stage, but nothing dramatic. The usual ‘hello how are we all tonight’ and then the jokes began. However, they wern’t that funny, average at best. 5 minutes into it he stops and says “so far the jokes have been ok haven’t they, not great, but the sort where you go ‘ar yeah he’s right you know’” (as Shaun nods and does this slightly high pitch voice), unfortunately I can’t do an impression via a text article! But it was very funny. And this was to become a recurring theme throughout the night. Brilliantly built-up using average jokes.

First Hour
Sean’s style is very much to keep hitting you with jokes, often you don’t even get the chance to stop laughing and he is half way through the next gag. This can mean the atmosphere struggles to build to its full potential, but he delivers it brilliantly and it feels like your job to catch up with a breath, because he isn’t going to stop. After the first hour though the break was welcomed as the awful Wolves Civic seats began to numb our bums!

Second Half
After a 15minute break Sean reappears with a little silver stand, which has a book on it, “time to play a game!”, this game is what he calls “Audience Battleships”. The silence descends as everyone waits in a slightly nervy state. It turns out Sean has a book full of gags (hence the Wikipedia/Lockipedia), for hundreds of different dictionary words. He then reads a seat number out and the member of the audience has to pick a letter and subject – to which Sean proceeds with his jokes. This was a welcome change to his non-stop pre-break routine. But did at times slow down too much when audience members didn’t respond.

After a shortwhile of Sean’s book we are back to the routine. Very much in the same style and non-stop format as before. I felt he definitely was at his strongest at this point, with his best jokes flowing. All highly observational comedy of course!

Depth Of Work
As the night continued on I began to realise this man can talk forever! He perhaps could have gone on for hours more. A testament to the sheer amount of jokes Sean has is that during the night I only heard one gag from him that I’d heard before. Impressive considering the amount of times I have seen him on panel shows, interviews and of course Live At Apollo. And he didn’t doing his stand-up for 45minutes, it was a full on 2 hours!

Value For Money
Once again another comedian who is great value for money, at £15 a ticket not bad at all for an evening of laughs!

Final Thoughts
Overall I would give the performance 8/10. It was perhaps a bit long, even the funniest comedians need to know when to stop and leave the audience wanting more. He could have cut some of the lesser gags out to achieve this. But nonetheless a thoroughly enjoyable night.

Sean is on tour until November 2010 so take a look at your local area to see when he is near you!

Part of the Adult Swim programs, Harvey Birdman is an attorney working for a law firm. But this is not just a normal cartoon. It is based around popular cartoon stars from the Hanna-Barbera cartoon series in the 1960s and 1970s! Often with the Birdman defending the characters who have gone bad.

Now the 3rd season has been released in the UK on DVD and is available to buy from Amazon and of course, other good retailers and some rubbish ones. I’ve had the pleasure of watching the entire season and well recommend it, here are my thoguhts.

The Cartoon Characters
There are so many Hanna-Barbera cartoons, I don’t know exactly how many, but hundreds, many of whom appear at some point in the show. Whilst watching you often find yourself recognising a character, slightly unsure to who it is but you’ve definitely see it before. I think they had real guts to go to such an extent to bring in so many loved characters. And this is certainly what makes it a stand out show.

Funny One Liners
The series is full of funny one-liners, often just coming out of nowhere! Here are a few quotes as examples:

• Potamus: You can sign whatever papers you want, over pork rinds and boobies what do you say?
• Phil: Tell me I’m pretty. I’m a pretty little girl… you didn’t hear that.
• Potamus: I warn you mister ape guy, you wouldn’t like me when I’m parched (then turns into incredible hulk!)
• Phil: Ha ha! Last laugh (very last line of series)

Peter Potamus
The best character in the show for me is Peter Potamus. He has the funniest lines, best scenes and definitely overshadows others including Birdman himself. A close second best is Phil (the boss) who has plenty of funnies.

Extras
There are some nice little extras on the DVD, including deleted scenes, a cool 5 page comic book of the origins of X The Eliminator, as well as clips of the actors performing the various character voices. There is also a nifty ‘joke timeline’ which shows you the jokes which get repeated in many episodes.

Overall
This is definitely a stand out show because of the old cartoon characters, this alone makes it well worth a watch. It is well written with some very funny lines throughout. And the production is slick. For me it does miss a touch of magic though which is perhaps why programs like South Park and Family Guy are far better known despite appealing to a similar audience. But nonetheless a recommended watch, I give it 8/10.

The series is available to buy now on Region 2 (europe) DVD.