Review: Jeremy Hardy, Everyman (From Stroud News and Journal)

Review: Jeremy Hardy, Everyman

JEREMY Hardy has hit 40, which as the Everyman audience discovered, gave him plenty of material for his narrative brand of stand-up.

As usual, he delivered his meanderings through middle age in the style of a public bar philosopher but that was where the similarity ended.

He hit the nail of so many of life's mysteries squarely on the head and, as usual, he secured laughs and a real bond with his sold-out audience.

This was mainly down to not hitting the audience over the head with his socialist dogma - but nor did it go over its head, instead preferring to slide it across in a well-thought-out package that made you think, even if you didn't agree with it.

His nonconformist fire burns on, illustrated by a tale of a sit-down protest in Northern Ireland, but not so brightly as before - when last on a march, he could only stay for a few hours because he had to take his 11-year-old to a violin lesson.

Now he is fighting something far more menacing and his railing against the (middle aged) system of Ikea, worrying about the kids' careers, having to like Bridget Jones' diary and DIY won him the most laughs and plenty of knowing looks in the audience.

He knows DIY is an unavoidable fact of middle-age and handed out a useful piece of advice for those speeding towards it - don't bother with the DIY superstores, try the hardware shop round the corner because they'll have everything, including a rawl plug strong enough to screw an elephant to a Ryvita. What more could you need to know?

Well, perhaps that being a 40-year-old dad and married to a teacher was not the end of life as he knew it, in fact it's turned out quite well.