Music has the power to soothe a savage breast – but that’s not everyone’s reaction to the onslaught of festive tunes that blasts out of shop speakers at an increasingly early point in the calendar each year.
Adam Kay has an antidote to that: your favourite (or not so favourite) tunes reworked with a slightly more malevolent message.
Here Santa is not coming out well from being stuffed down a chimney, it’s The Least Wonderful Time of the Year, and Jona Lewie’s lumpen tune has mutated to Stop The Canapes.
The humour is bawdy, raucous, but all very well natured, and that tone ran throughout his near-sell out show at the Norwich Playhouse on Tuesday.
The first half of the show focused on Kay’s Christmas numbers, including All I Want For Christmas (Is Cash) and the Swearytale of New York.
After the interval Kay took audience requests mostly focusing on his older parody material, heavily influenced by his former career as a doctor. For some particularly bad taste numbers, Kay would only proceed if an audience member joined him on stage to be the butt of any complaints – which his fans seemed only to happy to step up for.
Despite apparently suffering from pneumonia Kay performed with sparkle and gusto.
While his humour won’t be to everyone’s taste – think a drunken, bitter, version of most Radio 4 comedy and you won’t be far off – he has undeniable talent as a wordsmith and musician, and there was no glam rock or Cliff Richard in ear shot. Merry Christmas!
