It was the must-see comedy gig of the year. To promote the DVD release of their Channel 4 series Big Night Out, Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer were staging a one-off gig in a former Soho strip joint. Lured by the promised return of the Man with the Stick, Judge Nutmeg and Vic crooning his chart-topper Dizzy, the comedy aristocracy were out in force: celebrity fans and sidekicks could be spotted both onstage (Paul Whitehouse, Matt Lucas) and off (Shooting Stars team captain Mark Lamarr).
Cheers greeted the revival of every character and catchphrase from the show's heyday. When Bob teases Vic about his desire to "bum" a heavyweight boxer, Vic replies (cue hilarity): "You just wouldn't let it lie." And the audience can barely contain themselves when Reeves terrorises bespectacled lab assistant Les with some chives.
Of course, as another Shooting Stars colleague Will Self once pointed out, what makes the Vic and Bob material funny is that it isn't funny. Even in the early 1990s, the nonsensical postmodern vaudeville of Big Night Out was an acquired taste. To some, it reinvigorated the British variety tradition - albeit given an absurdist spin - and triggered a golden age in UK comedy. To others, it took the anarchic energy of alternative comedy and depoliticised it, paving the way for a decade of more or less silly, catchphrase-driven laughs.
Certainly, there are moments in tonight's brief show when the silliness is sublime. Witness Mortimer's alter ego Graham Lister in the Novelty Island paddock, forcing lard through a cardboard cut-out of Bryan Ferry's face. And when Vic describes Jordan rubbing her "boobs" to make a fire that will light Peter Andre's pipe, it becomes clear that the duo retain their flair for vivid word-pictures.
But the arbitrariness of it all can get wearing, the more so now that, 15 years on, Vic and Bob's pop-surrealism no longer has novelty in its favour. The silliness is often indistinguishable from puerility, as when Reeves uses a stick to simulate defecating ("it's not a shit, it's a stick") or Lucas dons a green jumpsuit and shouts "penis" a lot.
Rumour has it that reaction to this gig and to the DVD will decide whether Vic and Bob take Big Night Out on tour. I hope they do. It's a pleasure to watch them together onstage, enjoying themselves and making one another laugh. I'd be more inclined to join in, however, if they were to reinvent Big Night Out for 2005 rather than reanimate its 15-year-old corpse. First time round, the show was so unexpected it made your head spin. Tonight, it's less dizzy than cosy.
