Comedy

Sheffield is hosting its first comedy festival - "Grin Up North". Now I really do believe in laughter. That old saying - "Laughter is the best medicine" is true common sense. When you laugh you let it all hang out. Stresses are suppressed and your spirit is lifted. I looked at the festival programme and thought - Yeah! Ross Noble at the newly refurbished City Hall - that might be fun.

So I went with Jonathan - a new teacher in my department at school. There was Ross Noble on the stage - a crazy, physical guy with an accent from England's north-east. He performed for over two and a half hours - his "Randomist" show - fluent, intelligent and crazy - echoes and woven threads of humour. He drew titbits from the audience and milked them - always harking back to what had gone before.
He was the Pope and the Mona Lisa, a pig with trotters and Fifty Cent, marionette and shadow, streaming out words without ego, entertaining, looking for laughs not in a forced or contrived way. It was a little journey filled with energy and creative diversions and I laughed. There were peaks and troughs but sometimes I laughed until tears came. If only we could laugh like that every day, the world would be a lovelier place to live in I'm sure.