Marion and Geoff

LORNA MARSH

Anyone who has seen Rob Brydon's slice of comic TV genius Marion and Geoff can imagine the difficulties of transferring it to the stage.

Painful soliloquies on the lives of his ex-wife and her new husband and his limited access to his two kids do not appear as if they would translate easily to a live performance.

But the moment Brydon acting as self-proclaimed amateur marriage counsellor, Keith Barratt talks of his two smashers, the Norwich Playhouse audience is with him.

Buoyed along by jokes about the first stop of the tour at King's Lynn (“We don't talk about King's Lynn”) and audience members which included Canaries goalkeeper Robert Green and girlfriend Sarah Thomas, the audience are soon in stitches.

You warm to Brydon and his character, who is not nearly as painful as the TV version to such an extent that the two become indistinguishable.

Although each show on the tour is based around the same concept, the spontaneity is brilliant. Reactions to comments and questions formed some of the funniest and warmest parts. Even giving a heckler short shrift is done gently but with the subtlest hilarity.

And just to prove how much the audience loved both actor and character, they help Barratt out with a joke Brydon deliberately gets wrong.