Don't know who it's by or where it's from but thanks Mads for
emailing it to me! :O) ...



So the fat Northern comic is on stage, belting out old crooners'
numbers, waving his naked arse cheeks at the audience while goading
them into hurling loose change at his flabby, gyrating torso.

Welcome to just another normal gig for Johnny Vegas.

This time he was closing the Drugathon 2 benefit in London's West
End. But at least the projectiles helped swelled the coffers of the
Chemical Dependency Centre, the good cause for which Steve Coogan had
assembled 11 of his comedy pals.

Despite Vegas complaining that the Dominion Theatre was full of
middle-class people assuaging their guilt by supporting such a
charity, the truth is few gave a damn about the cause - they only
cared about seeing a top-notch comedy line-up. Even if it meant
paying what even Coogan admitted were overinflated prices that
spiralled up to £95 a head for the top seats.

Coogan opened last night's proceedings as the deliciously slutty
Pauline Calf, never missing an opportunity to pass a double entendre
through her lips, and joined on stage by Spaced's Simon Pegg as a
harassed sound engineer, and reluctant target of her fruity banter.
His unannounced appearance was greeted by such a faint smattering of
applause suggesting either that he was barely recognised, or the
crowd were just too polite, and insufficiently warmed up, to make a
fuss.

That was all we saw of Coogan in the first half. Even though it was
his name that sold most the tickets, he abdicated compering duties to
the acts, each introducing their successor. It was a parade of
circuit favourites, rather than stellar names, all compressing their
act into an unforgiving eight minutes.

Lee Mack, bravely ran out some newer material, to a mixed response.
The stronger gags matched the best he's ever done, even if he had to
lean on his winning 'cheeky, but never blue' persona to get him out
of the odd comedy cul-de-sac.

Noel Fielding performed his rock-solid, fantasy-tinged greatest hits
set with typically stylish rock and roll sensibilities - obsessing
about eye wars, oblongs and slightly-twisted monkeys to devastating
effect.

Tim Vine, unsurprisingly, rattled out his trademark selection of fast-
moving one-liners, mostly truly dismal puns and tortured 'doctor,
doctor'-style jokes but with a couple of classier gags thrown in, all
rescued by his unquenchable chirpiness.

While his Sketch Show colleague, Kitty Flanagan, seemed more out of
her depth, never managing to properly capture the attention of the
vast auditorium, even though her best material was interesting,
opinionated and funny.

The energy was lifted by Ross Noble, who, after a four-week West End
run of his own, spent his first free night back on stage, closing the
first half with a typically dynamic, inspired and semi-improvised
rant. He sent the audience grinning into the interval with tales of
Stephen Hawking, David Blaine and, most popularly, Ben Elton being
repeatedly punched in the face.

Coogan was back to open the second half as Paul Calf, attempting -
with mixed results - to address the evening's cause with some
material about drink and drugs. Material he clearly hadn't entirely
committed to memory, given the amount of time he glanced at the notes
written on his left palm.

As Calf, he introduced Rob Brydon, performing a witty extract from
his classy Marion and Geoff stage show, cleverly contrived as a self-
help lecture for the divorced and full of the nuances and digressions
that have rightly made him such a cult TV star.

Talking of cults, Matt Lucas and David Walliams were next up,
performing their well-crafted and off-kilter pirate memory game
sketch. Sadly, this fleeting glimpse was all we saw of this talented
comedy duo all evening, before Coogan returned - to a deafening
cheer - as Alan Partridge.

Here he proved that, as the failed Norfolk chat show host, he can
literally get laughs simply by reading CD covers, using lyrics from
the likes of The Verve, Grandmaster Flash and Jimi Hendrix to make a
deliciously cack-handed attempt to speak to 'the kids' about the
evils of drugs.

Vegas, who closed the show, is more of a walking advertisement for
the evils of drink. Even though he blatantly ignored all signals that
he was over-running, his set was - by his standards - remarkably
concise, and it worked all the better for it.

The usual self-loathing was there, combined with a surprisingly
scathing, and deeply personal attack on a front-row punter who had
the audacity to be wearing a short skirt - and, of course, that
buttock-waving song and dance number.

Even that wasn't the finale, as Vegas was determined to send us out
with a song in our hearts, and persuaded a reluctant 2,000-strong
audience to link hands for a rendition of New York, New York to close
the show.

"There's no way I should have listened to them," Vegas moaned at the
end. "There's no way I can hold a room this size. I'll stick to
playing 500-seaters."

The rousing ovation he got as he left the stage proved how wrong he
was.