“I can’t do John Shuttleworth for ever,” said Graham Fellows in a recent interview, revealing plans to write songs and tour not as Shuttleworth but as himself. Not least on the basis of Shuttleworth’s new show, that sounds like a good idea. In A Wee Ken to Remember (his agent Ken has again misprinted the title), the characterisation of this “versatile singer-organist from Sheffield”, as his publicity has it, is as pitch-perfect as ever. But it does feel like an act that could use a break, something new to do, or a creative shot in the arm.
Even taking into account Shuttleworth’s narrow horizons, there’s a novelty deficit to this new show, which finds the amateur entertainer discussing carveries, checking the level at the local reservoir and never quite accommodating himself to modernity. (“I’ve not had the confidence to buy a whole curry yet.”) The between-song chat sometimes drifts from comedy-boring to plain boring. Jaunty keyboard noodling aside, tonight’s song selection is light on laughs, with one or two numbers flatly situated between provincial bathos (Shuttleworth’s default mode) and not-quite-poignancy - Mingling with Mourners, say, or the one about the woman who lives in the Derbyshire village of Hope.
For all that he’s fastidious about the tempo on his Yamaha organ, the pace of Shuttleworth’s actual show doesn’t pick up until the greatest-hits medley at the end. Happily, we’re never far from the next gem of parochial comedy, whether that’s John’s weekend watching gliders at Great Hucklow or his peevish new number Relatives in Rotherham (“we tend not to bother ’em”). Throughout, Fellows inhabits the character like a second skin. Other comics operate in and comment on the gap between performer and character; with Shuttleworth, there’s no gap. Small wonder Fellows, at least for a while, wants his life back.
• At Key, Peterborough on 11 March. Box office: 01733 207239. Then touring.
