Jon Richardson’s Old Man Tour Live at The Lowry Manchester Review

Reviewed by Lucy Gwilliam

Last night (Monday 29 May 2017), the hilarious Jon Richardson brought his new tour, Old Man, to The Lowry in Salford, Manchester. Jon Richardson, is best known for being a team captain on 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, or as he put it ‘getting paid for doing anagrams’.

Before he opened his act, he came to the stage to pay his respects to the resent tragic events in Manchester and thanked everyone for attending the event at such a painful time for the city. I really respected him for doing this, it showed what kind of a person he is. It is must have been a difficult thing to entertain a city who are grieving.

Jon’s life has changed dramatically since his last tour. He now has a wife and a child, something he joked about he would never have previously. These changes in his life seem to shape the material he uses for the gig. Jon’s old man tendencies plus his OCD make for a very entertaining show.

The two hour show is jam packed full of witty anecdotes and lots of Jon going off on a tangent about random things, I love that kind of unscripted comedy though.

One of the funniest parts of the show was the ‘Twitter stalking’ stories. Jon’s take on how he interprets the messages he gets and then totally stalks the people, going back through all of their posts. He did this to audience members who had tweeted him before the gig, remembering things about them to catch them off guard when speaking to them.

At the end of the show, Jon explained that there were buckets for donations at the door and that he would be donating £1 per seat sold for each of the 3 nights he was performing at The Lowry. In a 4000 seat theatre, that is a really moving donation.

Overall, we had a brilliant time. The whole audience laughed continuously throughout the fast paced, energetic routine. I even feel the need to go out and buy my husband some £20 skinny fit chinos from Next, seeing as though they were persuasively sold by Jon during the performance.

Rating: 5/5

Tickets cost £24 (booking fees may apply).

Jon Richardson’s Old Man Tour Live is at The Lowry in Manchester from 29-31 May 2017, for more information or to book tickets visit www.thelowry.com or call the box office on 0843 208 6000.

The Lowry, Pier 8, Salford Quays, Manchester, M50 3AZ | 0843 208 6000