Civic Theatre, Darlington – 7 April 2015

In his first stand up tour for four years, Tim Vine arrived to a fully sold out Darlington with  “Timtiminee Timtiminee Tim Tim to You”  with the warning that the show contains wobbly props, one reference to a panda and a song about getting water in your ear after swimming.  It also has a veiled reference to Mary Poppins via the name of the show, the arrival of Vine in a chimney and his outfit (think Dick Van Dyke and the dancing penguins bit) and his leaving music of “Lets Go Fly a Kite”.

But the show was hilarious, from start to finish.  Full of puns, one liners, visual gags, ridiculous songs and the pure madness of Vine himself.  Including the epic “Pen Behind the Ear” and the joke voted funniest at the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe “I’ve decided to sell my hoover… well, it was just collecting dust.” 

Tim Vine presents proper, wholesome, clean family entertainment.  No profanities, no innuendo just fast-fire, clean and corny gags.  Suitable for an audience made up of 0 to 90 year olds. No politics, sexism or put downs just silliness on a grand scale which is a welcome relief for those of us who like our comedy to be funny.

The support act was equally as brilliant – local magician John Archer who baffled with his tricks and had me as a very unglamorous assistant whilst he guessed which street I had picked out of a choice of 3 map books.  I went for Krefeld Way in Barnet because we used to live in Krefeld – how he knew I do not know.  But I do love a good magician and he was a very good magician.

The tour continues until the middle of June and you would be mad to miss it.  Tour details can be found at http://www.timvine.com/tour.html