Jeremy Hardy

Norwich Playhouse

Hardy has been on the circuit for at least a couple of decades as one of the first alternative comics to take politics as their main source of subject-matter. His winning formula hasn't changed much as his show still involves a de-construction of the government, criticism of the Iraq war, hatred for Bush and other old favourites such as the health service, education and Margaret Thatcher!

Yet Hardy remains a crowd-pleaser as he presents his rantings in a cultured and educated way.

At 45, Hardy, a regular on Radio Four's News Quiz, is no longer an angry young man or quite a grumpy old man but his show is very English and very funny. It has, he says, taken him years to get over Britain having such a horrific colonial past but now he reckons that we're OK as a nation. It's just we have a poor family background!

His show does not use sexually explicit language, nor does he bicker with his audience. In fact, we become part of his gang as he reveals his worries for his adopted daughter and ponders over smack-ing of children, moving house to be in a better catchment area and other such middle-class concerns.

So perhaps the great socialist is actually more Blairite than he'd like to admit!