The indiscreet charm of Jim Davidson

Le tout Torquay was there, cramming into the Princess Theatre with a drink in each hand ten minutes after the show had begun. I pressed in among them. Jim Davidson, in a black shirt, a baggy old pair of jeans and business shoes, was already onstage introducing his show and bantering with people in the front row. ‘What’s the matter with you in the wheelchair, love?’ he said, cupping his ear at her. She was blind, she said. ‘Then what the fuck are you doing right down here at the front?’ (Laughter.) ‘Can you see anything at all, love?’ She couldn’t, she said. ‘Well, just to give you an idea,’ he said, vainly smoothing his hair, ‘I look a lot like Brad Pitt.’ (Laughter.)

The Princess Theatre holds 1,500 and it was pretty much full. Many of those arriving late were also quite drunk, and at the back of the stalls the hubbub of chatter and laughter made a similar background noise to that of a cocktail party. A woman in the row in front of me was so drunk her head was lolling. From time to time she’d come briefly to her senses and bawl out some mystifying word or phrase such as ‘It’s you!’ or ‘Rolf Harris!’, then lapse back into semi-consciousness. The ballet it wasn’t.

Jim Davidson must be well used to drunkenness because he good-naturedly paid these disturbances at the back no attention. Either that or he’s getting a bit deaf in his old age. Then he asked for a big hand for the young warm-up comic, and went off, and the warm-up man manfully warmed us up until the interval, when we all went out for a fag and more drink, and to wonder how Jim Davidson would cope with the bizarrely incomprehensible heckler in the second half.