Basil Brush - Unleashed

I was a tad nervous about the unleashed bit, but for the most part we stayed the right side of the line. The aforementioned kid’s show was all water pistols and custard pies, whereas the evening show was all about hidden fudge and sticky balls, and that’s about as far as it went. The thing is, I don’t recall Basil being “leashed” in the first place. On the contrary, as a kid, he may have been my first introduction to adult humour. For all the sing-alongs and story-telling, Basil always had a wink and a nod that suggested more was going on than a fox-based variety show. This was largely due to the backstage assistance of Ivan Owen who, rather brilliantly, remained largely anonymous during Basil’s early career. Owen passed away at the turn of the century, and the baton has since been passed on.
Basil now works with Martin Cabble-Reid, who as the current Mr Martin providing marvellously camp support, as well as water pistols supposedly filled with vodka. Basil’s current right hand man is Mike Winsor, though he too keeps pleasingly undercover. I could have done without the constant reference to the “man under the table” and they definitely get a red card for the stray hand that occasionally appeared, but on the whole, Basil managed to retain his dignity throughout. There were some fun filmed cameos, with stage manager Mel Giedroyc opening the show and a bizarre fake satellite link up with Hugh Bonneville, but most of the time it was Basil and Mr Martin fooling about with members of the audience, delighted to have their moment in the spotlight. None of it worked very smoothly, but that was probably the intention. Basil is at his best when riffing off the latest prat fall or fluffed line, and Mr Martin proved an excellent foil for his cunning wit.

My only misgiving was that the show felt a little shackled to what I can see must have worked well in Edinburgh, where its talk show format made perfect sense. With a wealth of talent on their doorstep, I can imagine it was great fun talking to a different comedian every night about their act. If they’d managed to draft in Delia Smith or Stephen Fry for the evening in Norwich, I dare say it would have been brilliant, but sadly – and I’m sure she’s a lovely lady – Ada Campe and her psychic duck didn’t really make much sense as a guest. In what was a rare misstep, we sat through a comic song and a terrible magic trick from Ada, while Basil looked on, seemingly as bewildered as the rest of us. It’s not that she was bad at what she did - it’s just not what we came to see. Presumably there will be different guests as they tour, but it’s the sort of thing that makes more sense to the performers, privy to the sweep of all the shows, than it does to an audience that have come to see one thing, only to be presented with another. 
Happily, we did get more of what we came for. There was the story telling section, which I’d have happily watched all night, that was a fun reminder of the highlight of his old shows. There was an Elton John inspired sing along and a nonsensical rap about box sets during the covid. There were even smatterings of satire in the Foxy News headlines. All in all, this was a jamboree bag as nostalgic as, well, jamboree bags. I can appreciate that, depending on your age and inclination, this was either incomprehensible as entertainment or the best night out in ages, but no prizes for guessing what the audience thought.