Tune in from 9pm every Sunday on Tameside Radio 103.6FM to catch up with Michael Taylor and Neil Summers. Here's their latest column for the Tameside Reporter...

Comedy ain’t rock n roll, but I like it.

David Baddiel and Rob Newman were the first British comedians to sell out Wembley Arena in the early 1990s and so comedy was hailed as ‘the new rock n roll,’ writes Michael Taylor.

You can’t get the same kind of energy as you do at a music concert, but you often get a similar crowd. 

I’m also in awe of comedy performers for their ability to memorise two hours of stories and jokes.

In the space of seven days recently, I was lucky enough to go to three shows. This isn’t because I’m some wild social animal, far from it, but the tickets for gigs that have been cancelled due to lockdown have been piling up.

As Jason Manford observed when we saw him last year, some people who bought tickets for these shows aren’t together anymore. 

He asked for a show of hands and was proved right, as a few people clearly got the comedy tickets in the split and then used them as bait for a date with a new special friend. It’s certainly a good way of working out what kind of sense of humour someone has.

Two Fridays ago we saw political comedian Matt Forde at the Lowry. His show was called Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right, which is a pretty good indication of his political views and of who is the brunt of his jokes for the night. 

If anyone didn’t know that and was on a first date with someone who was a fan of Jeremy Corbyn or Boris Johnson, then they will have had a very awkward evening.

The next night we saw An Audience With … Ricky Tomlinson. It was at Salford Lads Club, the location for an iconic photo of The Smiths used on the back of their Queen is Dead album cover and Ricky was interviewed on stage by Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, himself a huge Smiths’ fan. 

While some of the evening was taken up with stories of Ricky’s early life as a trade union activist, which landed him in prison, the real energy came from his tall tales of life in showbiz. 

Probably best known for his role as Jim Royle in TV’s The Royle Family, others remember him from Brookside and as Mike Bassett England Manager in a peerless comedy role. 

To be fair, he pretty much plays himself, which is fine with me, just as Matt Forde and Jason Manford are indistinguishable from their on-stage personas.

By contrast, last Thursday, we headed down the A6 to see Stewart Lee at Buxton Opera House, which is similar to Stockport Plaza as a theatre venue.

For me, Lee is a genius. This current tour is in two parts - Tornado and Snowflake - they are tentatively linked, and at times deliberately designed to be ever so slightly uncomfortable, but I roared with laughter throughout, even as he told the Derbyshire audience they probably wouldn’t get it.

As we left the theatre at the end, we surprisingly bumped into him in the foyer and he was obviously exhausted from the show, but also quite shy.

I promised I’d say something nice in the paper and he seemed benignly pleased about that. The Stewart Lee character he plays on stage would have said something far more savage. It’s all left me humbled, impressed and ever so slightly in awe of comic talent. Roll on the next one. 

You can listen to Michael Taylor and Neil Summers on Music Therapy on Tameside Radio 103.6FM on Sunday evenings from 9pm to 11pm. Click here to subscribe and catch up on previous shows.

Read more from the Tameside Reporter

Click here for more of the latest news

Click here to read the latest edition of the paper online

Click here to find out where you can pick up a copy of the paper