Big name comedians head for Midlands

A whole host of top comedians are heading for Midlands venues this week, including Bill Bailey, Reginald D Hunter, Sarah Millican and Dave Spikey.

The title of his tour sounds typically challenging. Reginald D Hunter will take to the stage at Wolverhampton's Civic Hall tonight under the banner Even The Devil Tells The Truth.

The popular funnyman explains: "Since September 11, there's been a lack of elegance about government deception. It's been naked and half-done and ill-prepared."

"When you listen to politicians or entertainers talking about profitability or collateral damage, they're telling you nakedly that whatever their interests are it is not for a collective good. So as we move away further from the collective good and public discourse and more towards personal interest, people are losing any sense of the need to even use euphemisms any more: 'we're doing this; we're drilling here.' Sometimes even the devil tells the truth."

It may come as a surprise to anyone in the UK familiar with the Southern drawl and relaxed swagger of Reginald D Hunter that audiences back in the nation of his birth consider him to be 'too British'. He discovered that recently when he returned to the US to play some gigs in LA at the kind of venues that aren't printed in the comedy section of the city's listings magazines.

"In America, people have a need to identify you quickly, work out what you are and what you represent.

"They try it most quickly through what you look like or what your accent is or what your clothing is; they need to figure out your type. A friend of mine said 'you look and sound weird to them'.So after a few bad gigs, I walked back on stage and said 'I'm told that I look and sound weird'. That got a little bit of a laugh."

Hunter is not the only frontline comedian who'll appear in the West Midlands this week. Sarah Millican brings her Thoroughly Modern Millican show to the Civic Hall on Tuesday while Dave Spikey headlines his Words Don't Come Easy production at the Wulfrun on Thursday.

TV funnyman Bill Bailey will star in his Dandelion Mind tour at Birmingham's LG Arena on Tuesday.

Bill first forged the show in the Highlands of Scotland last year, before touring it extensively in Australia and New Zealand. After its highly successful ten-week run in London's West End, Bill is now hitting the road for a UK tour.

Featuring Bill's trademark musical interludes, observations and stories of the road, Dandelion Mind is based loosely on the theme of doubt, plus barely contained rants about celebrity, TV, and Michael Winner.

Tickets for Wolverhampton Civic shows are available from www.wolvescivic.co.uk while tickets for Bill Bailey are available from www.lgarena.co.uk