[24
NOV 00] WARWICK ARTS CENTRE REVIEW - ALAN TITCHMARSH
Alan Titchmarsh,
Green-Fingered Sex God
REVIEW BY
ANTONY HOPKER
How
to worm a cat, an intimate chat with the Queen and almost being
blinded by Charlie Dimmock’s flying assets – all in a day’s work
for Alan Titchmarsh.
The
unlikely sex god wooed his crowd at Warwick Arts Centre with tales of
life behind the scenes at Ground Force, his rise to fame as a
television gardener and a few reasonably ancient, but well told jokes.
For
some strange, and disappointing reason, he felt the occasional need to
lapse into poetry, and at one inflicted a “sex” scene on his
audience from his latest book, which he was never afraid to plug.
But
in the main he was very jolly, riding a crest of a wave, and clearly
enjoying being in front of a live audience.
The
funniest point of the evening came when he was totally derailed by a
heckler, who said he was the brother of one the Ground Force team’s
stranger clients.
Somewhat
abashed, Alan continued his tale, and nervously looked at to the
audience member and said “Have you found that about him?”
“He’s
not really my brother,” came the reply.
Luckily,
our Alan from Ilkley was man enough to continue, despite being made to
look like a prize pudding on stage.
He
tells a good story, and works his audience well, and does so many
different things you wonder how he has time to garden his hilly
Hampshire sprawl.
He
tries to please, so much so that he came on stage with his first joke
nicely localised. It’s a shame nobody thought to tell him that he
was performing in Coventry, and not Warwick.
A
few audience questions followed at the end, most about how he dealt
with being a sex god, some about gardening and writing, before he
wrapped up with a poignant reflection on Nelson Made –whose garden
he created in a special Ground Force.
Some
of the audience got up to go before he had left the stage, which
seemed rude until you got outside to be confronted with a huge and
eager queue at the desk where he was going to sign books. He could
still be there now for all I know.
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