Lee Evans tour to hit Birmingham NIA

Comic Lee Evans is well known for lengthy live tours and he's starts a five-night run in Birmingham this Thursday.

It's not a show that's been thrown together overnight. Lee Evans tends to spend around two years putting together his arena tours and Roadrunner is no different.

During the past year, he's played not-so-secret nights at Birmingham's Glee Club, where he's tried out new material on fans.

He's also played a low-key gig in Shropshire, where he's been able to assess his forthcoming show before a live audience.

His Roadrunner tour began last Friday and comprises more than 50 nights in the biggest arenas in the UK.

Evans is used to such largesse. His Autumn 2008 tour was a record-breaker and he played to more than 500,000 people on 59 dates.

A DVD of the tour, released that November, because the best-selling comedy DVD of Christmas 2008, selling more than one million copies.

Roadrunner is a tour of similarly gargantuan proportions.

The tour visits most of the UK's major cities and tickets went on sale on October 15 last year – netting £7 million in one day.

He is presently on course to play 61 dates in 14 cities, two more than his 2008 record-breaker.

Evans arrives in Birmingham on September 24 for five straight nights at the National Indoor Arena.

It was always an ambition of his to take comedy to the biggest stages.

He says: "When we were doing the alternative comedy circuit there was nowhere to go. And then either Jack Dee or Frank Skinner or Eddie Izzard and, dare I say, myself, we wanted to see if it would work in theatres.

"On the alternative circuit you tended to hit a ceiling. We made this jump into theatres and it was a risk."

The gamble, however, paid off and after playing dates in theatres his ambitions got bigger.

"We took a chance, we did Wembley Arena to see if it would go into arenas and people came."

Evans had been frustrated by the limitations of small clubs.

"First of all, the comedy club, you couldn't do music and you couldn't do anything with the set.

"I wanted to write routines. But you couldn't do that in a comedy club. The limitations of a club always held you back."

Tours like 2008's Big and this year's Roadrunner start out at four hours, before being honed down.

"We try it out in small clubs and do about 20 minutes of new material. The people who run the Glee clubs in Cardiff and Birmingham have been really kind to us over the years and they let us go there every weekend and try stuff out.

"So we walk on stage at the end of the gig, so we're not disturbing the gig at all. And you see the other comedians gather at the back. We try 20 minutes out."

That attention to detail will pay off this week as Evans takes Birmingham by storm. He is performing five nights, beginning Thursday (September 22, 2011), at the NIA. For available tickets, visit www.theticketfactory.com

By Andy Richardson