“You’d better be funny,” yelled a heckler at the start of Jason Manford’s Palladium set. It might have sounded like a threat but it was really a playful request from someone who just wanted to forget their troubles for an evening. I'm sure the fan went home satisfied. When if comes to delivering the funnies, few do it better than Manford. He is versatile too. He plays a headmaster in TV drama Waterloo Road, he presents daytime quiz The Answer Run and if he seems relaxed onstage that might partly be due to the fact that he starred here as the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz in 2023.
The punning title of his show, A Manford All Seasons, succinctly sums up his style. The Salford-born stand-up excels at a cheeky brand of observational wit which everyone should appreciate. His speciality is relatable storytelling, tapping into truths that have his audience nodding in agreement en masse. His subject matter is often trivial – how we secretly love it when an event is cancelled and we can stay in, the ”ballache” of organising nights out, how children are skilled at waffling at bedtime. There is a lot about the travails of parenthood - as a father of six he is not short of source material.
Family life certainly keeps him grounded. He recalls how half an hour after finishing an arena gig he was on his hands and knees doing chores in the kitchen. So much for the glamour of celebrity. Elsewhere there are self-deprecating tales drawn from his showbiz side. How he came off the sub's bench to replace Usain Bolt in a charity football match and let the side down, befriending a former England international, visiting a Chinese sauna on tour and not knowing how naked to get. He is happy to be the butt of the punchlines.
Even when the gags are occasionally low-hanging fruit – such as his smutty Dion Dublin routine – Manford is an absolute master of drawing everyone in. He is a brilliant raconteur, the apotheosis of the superstar comedian who is essentially your funniest mate in the pub. He is certainly no mere “who remembers when Snickers were called Marathon?” nostalgia merchant. One of many highlights is when he offers fans a peep behind the curtain, explaining with a judicious example the scientific percentage game of his accessible humour. Too universal and routines will feel obvious, too obscure and they won't resonate with enough people. In the process he makes you aware that stand-up is much harder than he makes it seem.
