Musical: Little Shop of Horrors: Duke of York’s Theatre, London, 2008
Alistair MacGowan: The One and Many: Assembly on the Mound, Edinburgh, 2009
Ealing Comedy Festival 2010: Walpole Park, Ealing, London, 2010
The Talk Show with Stephen K Amos: Assembly @ Princess Street Gardens, Edinburgh, 2010
Laugh till It Hurts Comedy Gala: Bloomsbury Theatre, London, 2013
An Evening with Jasper Carrott and Alistair MacGowan: Richmond Theatre, Richmond, 2015
Alistair MacGowan’s 12th Impression: Gilded Balloon Teviot, Edinburgh, 2016
Known widely for the hit BBC TV show, The Big Impression, I first saw Alistair MacGowan star as maniac dentist Dr Orin Scrivello (alongside Sheridan Smith) in Little Shop of Horrors at the Duke of York’s Theatre, London in 2008. The B movie musical about a man-eating plant was filmed in 1986 with Steve Martin in the role and MacGowan was impressive in the stage version relishing the gruesome role.
A year later I saw MacGowan perform at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2009. His show The One and Many was extremely popular with audiences and featured funny sketches and accurate impersonations of celebrity figures. I remember David Beckham, John Motson, Dara O’Briain and Michael Parkinson being memorable. As a result of this, I saw MacGowan make more appearances at the Fringe and other comedy festivals.
In 2015, he starred alongside comedy heavyweight Jasper Carrott in a comedy show at the Richmond Theatre. Each comedian shared the two halves with MacGowan appearing first. As he rattled through more amazing impressions, I was laughing hard from the third row and unintentionally threw him on occasion causing him to forget who he was supposed to impersonating next. He grinned and gave me a thumbs up at the end of his section, so he had seemed to enjoy his performance and there were no hard feelings.
MacGowan is one of the UK’s beat loved impressionists and has made me laugh a lot over the years. I sometimes wish I could control my laugh but whenever I see live comedy, I always enjoy myself so much!