Tony Robinson

ALISON CROOSE

> King's Lynn Corn Exchange

Ostensibly the peg for this one-man show was The Worst Jobs in History, the theme of Robinson's latest book and TV show. In reality it was much better than that and was more of “an audience with...”

By his own admission a diminutive man, Tony Robinson used all the stage and auditorium to prove himself a riveting entertainer who quickly built up a rapport with his audience then kept them absorbed and amused.

Here was a passionate historian who has revelled in 12 years of Time Team and was driven by his fascination with the past to research off-beat aspects of our forebears who toiled on a variety of unsavoury jobs.

His show, full of energy and enthusiasm, revealed a man just loving direct communication with a live audience.

He welcomed the opportunity to offer a candid picture of his youth and gratitude for the life-changing opportunities presented by his role in Blackadder.

The child actor who played the Artful Dodger alongside Ron Moody as Fagin in Oliver!, who truanted, cheated in exams and left school at 16, knew he had arrived when he broke into the “charmed circle” of Oxbridge graduates to land the part of the repugnant Baldrick.