Rob Beckett tour titled ‘Wallop’ landed at the St David’s Hall and it did not disappoint. The great thing about Rob is that is a great sense of who he is and most importantly who his audience is so he caters all his jokes accordingly. Having seen many of Rob’s performances in shows such as ‘8 out of 10 cats’ and ‘all together now’ I had a sense of the type of person he is and type of comedy Rob uses. This show was typical Rob Beckett in his purest form which is great as people go to see the tv personality they are familiar with and Rob is exactly as he appears on tv so no one goes home disappointed.
The show started with a hilarious mashup of songs sung by potentially controversial singers such as Gary Glitter and Micheal Jackson which obvious can be interpreted as a very sensitive subject which some people may find offensive. The entire show is not for the easily offended and you have to have somewhat of a thick skin to fully enjoy some of the jokes throughout this show. This section did end with the greatest show song ‘this is the greatest show’ which is both cliqued and I have witnessed that song being used for walk-in music so much it’s starting to become annoying. This show did have a lot of audience participation which was great to see as it showed intelligence and quick wit of Rob Beckett as he was able to almost have a joke for whatever the audience said. I personally wouldn’t have done this at the beginning of the show as the flow wasn’t established yet but it worked perfectly fine for Rob.
A lot of Becketts jokes were meant for an older audience as it was mostly about becoming a father, family etc. There were also there were some jokes that even I didn’t understand which were clearly meant for the more mature members of the audience. There were jokes about in-laws which again, in my opinion, was again very cliched but the actual jokes were very fun. However, the second half of this show was more relatable to me personally and also all the younger members of the audience. They were a reference to the west end musical Kinky Boots, jokes about the new (ish) film marry poppies returns which were very clever and hilarious but also towards the end there were self-deprecating jokes which included a side-splitting gag about the size of Rob Beckett’s legs including a physical demonstrating which was hilarious. The reason he included this more modern relatability was to include everyone in the audience as the show was advertised as 14+ and obviously each person in the audience would want to feel included in the jokes.
The reason for this age rating is that Rob did talk about some very mature themes and did use a lot of strong languages and so it’s defiantly not a child-friendly show but people who are above the age restriction would really enjoy it. My only issue with this show is that at some points Rob spoke incredibly fast and that alongside his accent made some of the things he was saying very difficult to understand but this only happened a few time throughout both acts.
This show is Unapologetically Rob Beckett at his purest which is both relatable and hilarious in equal measures. I would rate this show 3 and a half stars and would encourage you to watch Rob stand up if you like his appearance on popular tv shows.
Rhysreviews 
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