Morecambe in Manchester

Dad has always been a big Morecambe and Wise fan, and every childhood Christmas included an evening gathered round the TV watching their legendary Christmas shows. One year there were over 28,000,000 people tuning in, half the population of the country, so they must have been doing something right.

Last year was the 25th anniversary of Eric Morecambe's untimely death aged just 58, and perhaps with this in mind a new play was produced charting the story of his life. This one-man show has been travelling around playing to small theatres up and down the country and the reviews have been excellent. I first became aware of it when a review appeared in the local paper, so when I heard it was due in Manchester in April, I booked some tickets straight away.



The star of the show is Bob Golding, who looks uncannily like the man himself, and his mannerisms and actions throughout really brought back the nostalgia. He charted Eric's life from an early age and throughout there were references to all the famous sketches, daft routines and one-liners that became his trademark, from the wiggle of his glasses, his silly walks, the paper bag trick and countless others.



The play was at the Library theatre in Manchester, a magnificent round classical-style building at the top of Oxford Road. Whilst we were watching the play, Carole took the opportunity to go shopping with Mum, so when we met up afterwards we all felt we'd had a great afternoon.