Marcus Brigstocke at Landmark Arts Centre

Once upon a Time the whole family were big fans of The Now Show (Radio 4 comedy) and went to see recordings when that was an easy thing to do, and we did it with military precision to get seats in the middle of the front row. At its peak, The Now Show included John Holmes, Mitch Benn and Marcus Brigstocke.

Marcus Brigstocke also did a radio comedy programme called I've Never Seen Star Wars and we bagged best seats for a recording of that too and were rewarded by Brigstocke making fun of eldest son's long hair.

Our final encounter with Brigstocke in this series was when he and Phill Jupitus did some Edinburgh warm-ups at Jacksons Lane in 2012.

Then, out of the blue, the local Landmark Arts Centre, a mere 15 minutes walk away, announced that he would be bringing his latest show, Vitruvian Mango, to the venue. 

No thought was required to fork out £18 for an unallocated seat.

Lots of people had the same idea and the venue was all but full when I arrived about quarter of an hour before the show.

Just enough time to get a beer at to find a reasonable seat towards the back.

The show was a series of stories on what being a man means today. Many of these were personal and included trying to het to close to women when walking late at night and appearing on Celebrity MasterChef with Greg Wallace.

The stories were funny and also made a point, they were most definitely "woke" which the Radio 4 listeners of Teddington appreciated.

The delivery was very much as expected, and experienced before, with longish lead-ins and wry punchlines. That produced a steady stream of steady humour that lasted something like an hour and a half plus a break. That was a lot of good jokes in one evening.

Steve Howe at Landmark Arts Centre

Having paid a reasonable amount of money to see Yes play the Albert Hall a couple of times in recent years I was not going to miss the chance of seeing Steve Hose play at a small local venue for little more than the cost of a pizza.

I had been thinking about seeing Steve Howe in Central London or even Farncombe when the gig at Landmark Arts Centre popped up. I walk past it to and from work every day so it is about as local as you can get. That locality also meant that I was able to go there in my lunch break to buy tickets. I was the first person to buy any so I chose three next to the central aisle in the front row. Steve made a strong plea for no photos so You'll have to settle for one showing how the stage was set but without him in it.

There was a food offer too, aubergine curry, which readily solved the where to eat beforehand question. With that in mind I arrived promptly, i.e. just before the advertised time for the doors to open, only to find nobody else there and no sign of doors about to open. I was a little worried that it had been cancelled and I'd missed the email (it happens) but there were soon some signs of life and the doors eventually opened and everything was fine.

The curry was nice enough and they got lots of decent beers in, e.g. Twickenham's Naked Ladies,  so the evening was set.

Not knowing any of his solo work, apart from that which appeared on Yes albums, I was not sure what to expect. It was quite a varied performance and Steve introduced each song to tell us its history and why he wanted to play it.

There were quite a few fragments from Yes, including a song that he described as buried somewhere deep in side three of Tales of Topographic Oceans (I was glad to hear that he still thought of it as a double vinyl album too). There were a lot more of his compositions for solo guitar and I was surprised to hear that some had made their way into the music curriculum.

With just one guitar, and sometimes a voice to go with it,  it was a gentle evening and a very pleasant one too. The room was packed and everybody sat in respectful silence punctured with loud applause at the end of each song. We were watching a legend at close quarters and behaved accordingly.

It was a thoroughly entertaining evening with plenty of good music and interesting stories about it. I left with even more regard for Steve Howe than I started with, both as a musician and as a person.

Socks in Teddington

I have a great deal of admiration for Kev F. Sutherland, the man behind The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre. The Socks would be enough for that but he does so much more and has a relentless schedule that takes him across the country delivering art classes, doing caricatures and being the Socks.

This travel brings the Socks to London most years and this time it was even better as they came to Teddington and that is walking distance from home.

Admittedly I was not at home. I was working in Cardiff that day but I escaped in good time to get to the Landmark Arts Centre before the show, if not to eat an evening meal. That's a very small sacrifice to pay.

The Landmark was built to be a church so it comes with high ceilings, almost invisible in the dark, and an echo to match.

I was the first one in (it was not meant to be open) and was lucky to spend some time with Kev talking about places that films and TV shows were made, we were close to the famous Teddington Studios, while I grabbed some peanuts and a bottle of beer. An excellent start to the evening and worth the price of admission in itself.

I was soon joined by some friends that I had persuaded to join me for the evening. The Socks' humour is somewhat off-beat so there was a little trepidation about recommending the show.

I need not have worried. Almost with the opening words they were laughing out loud as were the other fifty or so people in the theatre.

The first half of the show, Boo Lingere, was a series of sketches, spoofs and puns on a horror theme, a new set for this year.

There was a short break, I'm sure more for Kev to rest in than anything else, where another beer was consumed, then it was a second half of older material.

I had seen some of this before but that did not make it any less funny and the loud laughter continued as before.

There were a few spills along the way, as expected, and Kev's ad libbing abilities were remarkable, especially as he was doing it in two characters at the same time.

There is no point in over-analysing what the Socks do or how they do it. The point is they are funny. Very funny.