John Bishop, the popular Liverpool comedian, performed to a sell-out crowd at the Gaiety on Wednesday night.
As well as doing stand-up Bishop, 46, has starred as a regular panellist in the Sky 1 sports quiz, ‘A League of their Own’, along with Jamie Redknapp, James Corden and Freddie Flintoff, and also hosted his own shows, ‘John Bishop’s Britain’ and ‘John Bishop’s Only Joking’.
As he took to the stage he told the crowd how this wasn’t a tour, he had just got bored at home and wanted to go to a few of the places he had been to that he’d liked the best.
He went on to tell us how he had previously worked as a drug sales rep before turning to comedy at the late age of 35 and referring to his fame, still woke up wondering how it had all happened.
Bishop has a laid back style, chatting about his home life with his wife and kids, making you feel like he’s just someone you met in the pub. He has been married for 20 years and has three sons, and joked that he had made a career out of just talking about his wife and kids.
He told how earlier in the day his mobile phone had been stolen by a swan whilst feeding them near his home and his difficulty in explaining that to his insurance company.
There was plenty of local stuff, which the crowd loved, as he spoke about the TT races, telling us that the taxi driver who had brought him from the airport had told him ‘it was good this year, only one person died’, which shocked him into replying that he hoped our best advert for tourists wasn’t ‘come to TT, only one person died.’
He laughed in disbelief at how the island had been ranked by bookmakers as fifth most likely nation to put the next man on the moon, commenting that we might want to try sorting out the airport first but he liked our ambition.
There were also mentions for the Sefton and the Island Games.
Bishop told how he was currently writing his autobiography and had tried using Dragon software, which allows you to talk whilst the computer types, but it couldn’t understand his scouse accent.
His interaction with the crowd was brilliant, at times making you glad you weren’t on the front row, and he even ended by taking questions from the crowd.
After the gig Bishop posted on his official facebook page: ‘Lovely gig in the Isle of Man – the country fifth most likely to send a man into space apparently – a day full of lessons.’
The show went down a storm and left fans enthusing over the performance afterwards.
Sarah Sweeney, from Peel, said: ‘He was brilliant, really funny. It was nice he chose to come back here as one of the places that meant something to him. His many jokes about the island and its people went down well. It was an excellent night.’
Will Erani, from Douglas, said: ‘It was like getting taught life skills by the funniest man in the pub. I thought it was a casual and engaging performance from a genuinely funny man.’
Sean Arrowsmith, from Ballabeg, said: ‘I thought it was excellent, mainly down to it being more relaxed than a normal tour show. The huge chunks of local material always helps.’
