TREVOR HEATON, EDP Whats On Editor Rich Hall won over a Norwich Playhouse audience not once but twice.

TREVOR HEATON, EDP Whats On Editor

Rich Hall won over a Norwich Playhouse audience not once but twice last night.

How? By appearing in two guises – once in his laconic stand-up mode and then in his Perrier Award-winning persona of Otis Lee Crenshaw.

The first half saw Rich take apart such subjects as George W Bush, the Iraq war effort, Olympic anthems and even alien abductions. Oh, and the Playhouse itself. “The most brick I've worked in front of in my life,” he quipped. He's only joking, folks.

He had the usual comedic fun with latecomers, but was always ready with a witty aside.

“Your favourite subject's biology?” he asked one student. “OK, so what's your favourite sub-phylum?”

And then he came back as his multi-award winning persona, Otis Lee Crenshaw. Backed by his country band The Black Liars, Otis sang songs of heartbreak (he's been married six times, all to women called Brenda), prison life and his backwoods upbringing.

It takes a genius to fashion a brilliant song out of the fact that one of the audience is called Paul and sells wood-burning stoves. But Otis did.