From the Lakes to Leicester Square.

Here's a change from my usual blog topics.

Our son, Nick Dixon has been making a career in stand up comedy for the last few years. Last weekend he was supporting Tom Stade at Leicester Square Theatre. Was he terrified? Not at all.

We don't know how he does it but we're very proud of him. Here's a review of Tom Stade's show from today's The Times.  

You can only access this online if you are a Times subscriber, so in case you're not, I've cut and pasted it for you.

His agents are Comedy Store Management  and he'll be supporting Tom Stade at Leicester Square again this weekend, and the weekend after he's on the Best In Stand Up show at The Comedy Store, London. 

Tom Stade at the Leicester Square Theatre, WC2

Clive Davis

April 5 2016, 5:00pm,

The Times

ShareSaveSave

★★★☆☆

If you read a transcript of Tom Stade’s monologues, you might easily conclude that his material is a little ho-hum. Doesn’t every other stand-up make jokes about Marks & Spencer and daytime television schedules?

What gives his performance an extra charge is the manic energy. A Canadian who has long made his home in this country, he swaggers and staggers around the stage like a dude who has spent too much time propping up the bar in some godforsaken town in deepest Nevada.

The f-word flies in all directions, yet he can be a sentimental, almost self-pitying soul too. You can never quite be sure whether he is squaring up for a fist-fight or going to pull out a photo of his mother.

At the centre of his latest show, You’re Welcome!, is an account of a less than earth-shattering stand-up gig at Glastonbury. Expecting to find the spirit of peace and love wafting over the West Country meadows, Stade was duly confronted with the realities of the festival industry. Surprise, surprise, most of the people had come to hear rock dinosaurs rather than a comic they may have glimpsed on Live at the Apollo.

It didn’t really matter that he soon wandered off in other directions. While there was nothing out of the ordinary about his thoughts on jay-walking or immigration, that dissolute sandpaper voice carried you along.

The bouts of audience interaction were a shrewd mix of bluster and bonhomie. And there was a hugely engaging support act from the soft-spoken Nick Dixon, providing everyman glimpses of London life from the vantage point of a cheerless bedsit and a seat on the Tube. Naturally, the capital was not seen at its best. A refugee from the Lake District, Dixon cheerfully and effortlessly rubbed our noses in the grime.

Box office: 020 7734 2222, to April 9, then touring. tomstade.co.uk