Smuts in their eyes

'Think of this show as an ornamental glass of eggnog being poured from a bowl of happiness,' Jackie Clune tells us. She has bounced on stage in a nifty white PVC number, backed up by her two male dancers, and swung into the first Christmas number (Yulesville or Bust) before we even know where we are. Kick, turn, and off to the Christmas log cabin ('I kept the builders up all night to get this ready: ooh my lips were chapped in the morning'). Welcome to the familiar innuendo-filled world of pantomime. Clune crosses Christmas with her own brand of off-off-West End theatre, paying homage to Abba, James Bond, All Saints and, most importantly of all, herself. The songs are sharp and funny, though some of the surrounding material a bit less so. For the first half some of her gags seem a little tired or misplaced: it is not until just before the interval, and then for the much tighter second half that we feel completely Cluned up. That is probably where that slight edge comes from: sometimes, when Clune is talking herself up, or down, we are not sure how to take her. She spends half the time making jokes about exhausting men, and the other half telling Richard Whiteley (who calls her up during the show, although we suspect it may be recorded - no, really) to stop pestering her: 'I'm a lesbian, I've told you before.' After Clune's This is Your Life (featuring Mel and Sue coming out of the shower cabinet) and her very own fly-on-the-wall documentary, we make up our minds that though she may be a bit of a cow, she is our kind of cow, the kind of cow you would like to spend a night in the pub with, picking everyone in the room apart.