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“Rob Brydon is fully deserving of the title “world-class entertainer.” We were promised a night of music and laughter and that is exactly what we got!”

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Before seeing this show, I admittedly only knew Rob Brydon as Uncle Bryn from Gavin & Stacey, so I was intrigued and excited, if a little bemused, about the premise of seeing him onstage singing a range of Tom Jones, Elvis and Guys and Dolls covers. Upon arriving at the theatre, it was also impossible not to notice that I was definitely the youngest audience member there by … a lot. But I tried not to let any of these things faze me as I took my seat.

The band, led by Brydon’s musical director Paul Herbert, appeared first, in a simple yet lovely set-up all around the stage. They were colourfully dressed and all looked genuinely happy to be there, which definitely helped to build a nice atmosphere. Then Rob came on to rapturous applause. He introduced the show, with a few funny quips about Edinburgh (“I mean it’s not Glasgow, but it’s nice.”) and announced that the show would be “the story of my life illustrated with songs.”

Musical director Paul Herbert. Image provided by Capital Theatres.

Brydon’s stage presence and singing were wonderful. He did justice to every single one of his iconic song choices and proved that he is fully deserving of the title “world-class entertainer.” His performances of Tom Jones’ ‘Delilah’, The Beatles’ ‘Hey Jude’ and Uncle Bryn classic ‘Islands in the Stream’ (performed in character!) were particular crowd pleasers. Funny and endearing anecdotes from his life including his first kiss aged 14, and consistent rejections from drama school as a teenager added a lovely personal touch, and a variety of well-interspersed celebrity impressions had the audience rolling with laughter.

However, it is Brydon’s flawless ability to interact with and take the mick out of the audience that is arguably the highlight of the show. He is razor-sharp and hilarious, starting the night with a series of jokes about the age demographic (“I was in Barbie, in a desperate attempt to appeal to a younger demographic, clearly, it has not worked.”) and making running gags out of several audience members, which were so great and casually thrown in, that it was almost impossible to believe that they were improvised. He even had an audience member up onstage at one point to play the glockenspiel in his band, which served as a great example of how sometimes the simplest, silliest things can be the funniest. 

If I had to criticise one thing, I felt like at times the concept wavered a bit. It started out as Brydon performing songs that represented parts of his life, but started to trickle down into random anecdotes, “I like this play” or “sometimes I like to sing the lyrics of one song to the tune of another” (leading to an impressive performance of the Spiderman lyrics to the tune of ‘Bring Him Home’ from Les Miserables, which frankly I am not complaining about). However, this didn’t detract one bit from the fun and entertainment of the evening. I also don’t think that anybody in the audience was bothered about seeing a slick, perfect, meticulously put together, life-changing production; we were promised a night of music and laughter with Rob Brydon, and that’s exactly what we got!