Count Arthur Strong's Command Performance

Review of a Comedy Extravaganza

Count Arthur Strong's Command Performance sees the UK's most popular Count strutting his stuff and playing court jester for the Royals, regardless of whether they bothered to show up or not. It's essentially a wacky compendium of Arthur's best bits to date, generously pillaging sketches and gags from the hit BBC radio series that first brought him national fame in the UK. The old favourites - such as the blind wine tasting gag - are liberally scattered amongst new material, the highlight being a ventriloquist routine in which the lovably irascible Count gets to perform a duet with a totally inarticulate over-bandaged Egyptian mummy doll. For the nostalgists, it's a happy drift back to those balmy days of Goodies-style visual comedy and casual political incorrectness - the kind of stuff the BBC wouldn't touch with a bargepole these days.

Never one to hide his singing prowess under a bushel if he can help it, Count Arthur throws himself into his outrageous musical routines with the vim and destructive force of a very irate tornado on steroids - his attempt to completely massacre Windmills of the Mind will stay with you for years after you watch the show, sitting happily alongside other great natural catastrophes. Once again, the Count is aided and abetted by his comedy stooge Malcolm, along with his female alter ego Renée, who gets to perform (if that's the right word) the show's raunchiest number with the curiously lovelorn Count. Ian Lavender's unused understudy from Dad's Army (we know him as Eggy) adds additional support, which mostly involves being shouted at and made a convenient scapegoat when things go horribly wrong (which is roughly once every twenty seconds). We may love the Count to bits, but he's pretty horrible to his mates.

Whilst not as polished and satisfying as his subsequent stage romp The Sound of Mucus, Count Arthur Strong's Command Performance is a non-stop rollicking comedy tour de force that never flags for a second. It's hard to account for the appeal of our illustrious Count. To some he is a comedy icon, the soul surviving representative of the golden age of music hall, a man for all seasons (except the cold ones) and a cultural ambassador of inestimable charm and wit. To others he is that shouty offensive git who sat next to me on the bus this morning and refused to offer me a Polo mint. But, whatever you say about Arthur, it cannot be denied that he loves to put on a show - and then watch it fall about his ears like a tower block succumbing to a very bad case of subsidence. Let's hope the Royals were watching - the Count's knighthood is long overdue.