We were all looking forward to the tribute gala for the late John Inman at the Lyric Theatre tonight, but...
Although it was nice to be there among the audience of extremely elderly luvvies and their grans, and to see creaking appearances by the likes of Danny LaRue, Frank Thornton, Trevor Bannister and the criminally under-used Wendy Richard - people who actually appeared to know and like John - the whole thing was just so stagey and distant and end-of-the pier that it seemed like the "John Inman bit" was sort of tacked on as an afterthought.
Reminiscent at times of watching a revival of New Faces of 1972, we were "treated" to music and jokes from faded old acts like Jess Conrad, Johnny More (who?), Craig Douglas, Julie Rogers and some woman who apparently appeared in Last of the Summer Wine - a show that has no perceptible link to John Inman at all, but he used to take the piss out of her clothes so that was sufficient for her to be there and read a poem about it. Among the acts, one Rose Marie - bizarrely billed as a "singer" - actually got the audience laughing at her terrible performance, despite trying to be serious!
On it went, as they dredged up Henry Cooper (!) to add to the list of wobbly old people on stage, and Frank Thornton tottered on again, looking for all the world like he was about to join John in his grave. Then he introduced the worst thing of the whole evening - Bobby Davro. I never liked him - he ranks with the likes of Jim Davidson, Jim Bowen and Ted Rogers in the hall of infamy of old school unfunny, sexist, racist and unpleasant "comedians". And true to form he resorted to the kind of routine that wouldn't be out of place thirty years ago at a Pavilion somewhere awful like Ilfracombe or Rhyl, or Benidorm perhaps.
After about an hour of "jokes" about dwarves, boobs and toupees we realised that this was indeed it - big names that had been advertised to appear were not going to turn up after all. We had been expecting Barbara Windsor, and rather hoped that one of the "surprises" might have been someone who would actually talk about John's life. But no - the mentions of John Inman amongst the acts were few and far between, and throughout the evening just one (rather dull) photo of him was projected as a backdrop. [Even Phil Starr got a selection of Powerpoint slides when Maisie Trollette did a tribute show at the Quebec pub.]
All in all an unsatisfactory tribute to a really talented man.
John Inman website
