Lee Evans is one of the only English comedians that gets me in stitches, I really love watching repeats of his tours on Paramount Comedy and spend hours laughing my ass off. He's such a funny comedian, so when I heard about his Big tour, I asked for the DVD for Christmas.

We matched to get it 'cheap' at Woolworths (20% off) not 80% like it would have been a few days later, however now it's almost halved in price which is very annoying. Here is the review:

Who is Lee Evans?

Born in 1964, Lee Evans is most famous for being a stand up comedian, but in his life time he's also a musician and actor as well. His stand up tours are most famous for being loud, sweaty and of course very humorous. He is compared a lot to Norman Wisdom, due to his look and the fact he has a very energetic style of stand up.

Lee Evans is most famous for his sweatiness, he is usually after about 5/10 minutes drenched, and often has to change suits in between different things. The reason I have said this as it fits nicely into the next section.

The DVD- Big, Live At The O2 Arena

The DVD begins with Lee Evans in his dressing room getting very panicky and nervous resulting in him sweating and his dressing room being flooded. This is typical of Lee Evans, he starts of his show the same way each time, there are two acts to this tour, and of course his usual songs at the end.

Act 1

In Act One, the show starts off with a voice over, and the camera panning into the big screen, with Lee in the dressing room sweating his ass off, so much so he floods the room. This is hilarious, and really starts off the stand up brilliantly, it obvious got the crowd started for the rest of the 2 ½ hour show.

He of course does his usual start where he starts thanking the people, it's a bit different to other tours where he doesn't know what to say, this usually annoys me as I just want to get on with the jokes and with this tour he does that.

He spends the next hour joking about things from his old mobile to speed dating, which fits into the little sketch that is not fun in my opinion. He usually does a sketch in each of his tours and for me they are the weakest part of the tour in my opinion as they are funny but not brilliantly funny, they go on a bit too long.

Act 2

Act 2 begins after an interval where he carries on using his real life experiences to deliver some jokes, mainly about his wife, and all of the things she gets up to and Lee's experiences of this and what he always thinks when this is happening.

Songs

This is always an enjoyable part of the tours, his music is just hilarious. The first song called Would You Kick A Man While He's Down is hilarious, Lee uses a ukulele throughout this track and it sounds very good.

The second track is called 'That's How It Is' this is track is done on the piano with pictures on the big screen showing pictures of people in the world, for example Gordan Brown and people in the army.

The third track is called; The Earth is a Special Place and again it's on the piano and it includes a lot of people dancing around Lee and even a little opera boy singing part of the song on the big screen.

The Tour

The Big Tour was huge, and to show how Big the tour actually was I'm going to give you some facts which I got from the extras of the DVD. The Big tour was 59 performances across the UK, and a total of 468,073 people attending to watch Lee's latest stand up tour.

The tour couldn't have happened without the 120 crew members which made the show what it was, and in total they eat over 21,600 meals. In the show Lee, who is most famous for being very energetic, in each different show walked an average of 12 miles, so the total he walked in the 59 shows was 708 miles and just because it's funny, Lee apparently produced more than 474.5 litres of sweat throughout the whole tour.

Extras

There is only one extra and it is called 'Making It Big', it starts with Lee thanking the crowd and then one of his songs is played while facts come onto the screen. Like that Big is the biggest ever tour, with 468,073 people coming to see him on the big Tour

They show how the video of Lee's sweat floods the room and interviews with him, and the extras are very enjoyable to watch as they do give you a great behind the scenes look at the Big tour.

Opinion

As you can probably tell I love this DVD, It was a great treat when I got it for Christmas, even though I knew that I was getting it. Lee Evans is one of the best comedians in the UK, it's because he uses things in his jokes that happen to him in real life, he uses a lot of things that he's seen over the years.

One of the things, which me telling you is not really ruining it because it's on all the adverts, is the bags on the back of the pushchair in the middle of the supermarket and a kid is sat there laying on his back wondering what the hell has happened. This is hilarious as you do find things that happen to you and Lee makes them oh so much funnier.

He really is just a funny comedian and the way he is always thankful and he's always shocked that people come to his tours is always refreshing.

The Good Points

The good points about the Big Tour is pretty much everything, Lee Evans is at his best with jokes being thrown left right and centre, and you find yourself in stitches throughout. All the stuff is new material and I don't think I've heard any of it before on his other tours.

I really like the way he uses his wife and her habits the most throughout the DVD, however he made a point of thanking his wife in this one saying that she is his inspiration for his jokes, and without her, he wouldn't have all of this. This is lovely and Lee seems like a stand up guy.

The way that the tour is so energetic adds a lot more amusement when watching it, unlike other stand ups he doesn't just stand still, I don't think he stands still at all in the whole show, and this of course results in him sweating buckets. He is so energetic and doesn't just rely on his jokes, a lot of the funny parts of the show is him rein acting what he is talking about.

The Bad Points

I paid just over £10 for this DVD before Christmas when I saw it in Woolworths, my mum gave me the money back as the gift is from her but still as soon as Christmas pasts, the DVD is now not only being sold on EBay for 99p but you can buy it of the internet, new and sealed for only a fiver. This is one of the downsides to this DVD, you'll always find it cheaper.

The sketch and the songs are the weakest things in the tour for me, usually his songs at the end are hilarious, and however these were good but not brilliant. The sketch as well was pretty weak this time, it was about speed dating and just wasn't very funny at all.

The last 'bad' point of the DVD is the fact that you really can only watch it once, all the jokes once you've heard before, they become still good but not as belly laughing as they were before.

Comedy

Of course this DVD is full of proper belly laughing jokes; they all keep you laughing throughout. It's the fact he uses real life experiences which have happened to the best of us which makes this so funny. Little things he does physically also give you some brilliant laughs.

Language

There is actually people on amazon that rated this DVD 1 star because of the language involved, what world do we live in? This DVD is rated 15, which is right because he does use things that made not be appropriate for some people and there is language throughout, but seriously what do you expect from a DVD which is rated damn 15.

Did I enjoy it?

Yes I did, I was in stitches all the way through, Lee Evans is better than ever and he makes sure that you don't have any trouble understanding any of the jokes as well because he's so articulate and uses a lot of visuals ways of explaining things. For me this is his best Tour yet and of course, his Biggest.

Should You Buy The DVD?

If you are a fan of Lee Evans already then you won't be disappointed, he is funny as ever and keeps you laughing all the way through. If you haven't heard of Lee Evans before, then again, you might as well check it out. He is hilarious and really is a fantastic comedian one to check out.

Details

Rating: 15
Running Time: 145 minutes
Rating: 10/10

(C) Kirsty 2009