Daughter 2 is finally through the school grinder with her last exam firmly in the rear view mirror so we decided to celebrate with a night at The Glee watching Rob Delaney.
We always enjoy a night it at The Glee Club. It invariably feels warm and friendly, totally unlike similar clubs I’ve visited in Manchester or London which have been harsher or more hipster in turn. The fact it feels a lot like the image I conjured up as a kid from my mum and dad’s description of the cabaret nights at the old “Double Diamond” club in Caerphilly if anything makes it feel even more cosy and enjoyable.
On arrival we were led to allocated seats at the back of the room which initially had me fearing the worst but as it turned out the seats weren’t too bad – a bit of a side-on aspect but we were close enough to have a great view of the stage so it didn’t affect the evening at all.
As the doors close at 7:30 and show ends at 10pm they pretty much have a captive audience for food. Who wants to eat at 10:30pm? I mean we’re not Spanish for goodness sake.
Anyway – we duly ordered our food together with a bucket of beer from the bar. The food menu is basic but pretty good. So classic pizzas & burgers all round were the order of the day and very enjoyable it all was too.
The support and main act were fab – the following contains a couple of spoilers so if you’re intending to catch them on tour suffice to say it’s probably the best act I’ve seen at The Glee so highly recommended.
First up for the evening was Hailey Ellis – a comic from Manchester who was very funny with a good line in scatological humor. I particularly liked the image of her hiding in the attic like the “Anne Frank of love”.
Considering that she seemed to be suffering from a heavy cold she did a great job of warming the crowd up for the main act.
Rob Delaney took to the stage as to the manor born, totally confident he gave the impression that he was skillfully weaving comedy gold out of the first thoughts entering his head from the stratosphere. My daughter assured me this wasn’t the case and that the show was carefully stitched together but I guess that’s the skill of it all.
Having an architecture student with us we particularly appreciated his rant about architects, “I choreograph space, am I an artist? am I a mathematician?” Very funny in the circumstances.
He was playfully crude but never to the point of being offensive (well – I’m thick skinned) and has that amazing knack of getting your innermost thoughts down into bite sized phrases. His riff on the brilliance of the NHS for example “if the NHS had a dick I’d suck it” was spot on.
To me this was jazz comedy riffing on funny lines – seeing how close to the edge he could get without tumbling off.
The image of his toddler fixing him with a gimlet-eyed gaze as he filled his nappy to the thought of “all day long, buddy” will stay with me.
All in all it was a billowing ham blanket of fun.
Highly recommended.
Eat see hear Cardiff 