Poor Old Roger

I am writing this whilst Roger slumbers on my sofa - his one man show last night was a complete disaster. Firstly, he only sold ten tickets, five of those to his mother, Maureen and her cronies and the rest to me, Wilf, Eleanor and two tramps called, rather bizarrely Vladamir and Estragon, hopefully as a homage to Waiting for Godot.

The set was impressive, if nothing else. It consisted of a single flat behind Roger which was decorated in maroon flock wallpaper; he sat on a cherry red leather wing chair placed on a wilton rug, so I think he managed to nail the 'Gentlemans' Club' look if nothing else. He wore a blue silk smoking jacket, velvet trousers, spats, brown patent winklepickers, plus a silk shirt topped of with a mustard coloured cravat - his remaining hair was slicked back and he sported a monacle.

The evening started five minutes late with a strange buzz stage left, which was strangely miked up and ended with "don't wave that thing near me, you're not Keith Chegwin you know!" Roger managed to lift the mood with a slide show depicting various events in his life; I must confess that some of the pictures looked a little superimposed, especially the one depicting Roger meeting both the Pope and Nelson Mandela. Eleanor of course was almost in hysterics at this point, typical!

The musical element of the evening didn't go as well as could be expected either - Roger's rendition of Strangers in the Night was somewhat muted and the backing track to The Greatest Love of All disappeared in the second chorus so he was somewhat out on a limb. During the last number, Body Talk, Roger's mother and her friend started throwing Minstrels onto the stage which wasn't particularly pleasant, one old lady, Doris Murphy brought along some rotten fruit which caused a nasty stain on Roger's smoking jacket.

The audience Q&A section went badly too, Roger's mother piped up with "Why are you such a huge liar son?" Roger's riposte was "because I've learnt from the master, mother dear!"

After clearing up afterwards and forfeiting the £500 deposit Roger dissolved into tears in Eleanor's car. He spent the night on my sofa after drinking all of my Bell's Whisky. Wilf got bored after half an hour and bailed out.