The Freddie Starr Show: Theatre Royal, Newcastle Upon Tyne, 1984
The Freddie Starr Show: The Sands Centre, Carlisle, 1986
One of my favourite memories is of my mother laughing at Freddie Starr on television and on stage in the seventies and eighties. Starr was a regular guest of Des O’Connor and the sight of O’Connor’s regular corpsing at Starr’s bizarre clowning is a very happy thought.
I never really knew why my mother was a fan of Starr’s but nevertheless we went to see him live on two occasions and she loved him. The first time was at Newcastle’s Theatre Royal and the show was much more comedy based. As Starr interplayed with the packed audience of fans from all generations, we both laughed until we could laugh no more. Performed with love and affection for the celebrities he lampoons together with shock tactics, I particularly remember Starr walking on stage with a sock on his head starting to sing to the back wall of the theatre impersonating the great bling soul singer Ray Charles. When he could hear laughter from behind him he turned around removed the sock from his head and threw a banana from his trousers into the audience to shrieks of delight. Starr’s clowning around on stage won him a standing ovation that night.
The second time we saw Starr was at The Sands Centre in Carlisle in 1986. Although still funny, this show was based more on musical impressions which Starr was particularly good at (most notably Elvis Presley) and less clowning around.
During the seventies and eighties, Starr’s popularity was enormous and I was very pleased to see live on stage one of Britain’s great comic entertainers.