Toby Hadoke - Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf

Toby Hadoke's stand up show based around his love of Doctor Who is something that I have been meaning to see since I was in Edinburgh two years ago, and caught a few glimpses of him as he took part in an afternoon sketch show called "Soup" upstairs in the Café Royal. At the time he was performing Moths in the evenings, but had revealed his astonishing memory and passion for the doctor briefly during one performance of Soup. Toby is an accomplished comedian, has appeared on various things of stage and screen that may explain why you think he's slightly familiar, and also manages and compères XS Malarkey, the Manchester comedy club.

The show Moths Ate My "Doctor Who" Scarf, which has also been recorded for radio, is perfect for those who love the Doctor as well as for those who barely know the show. Toby tells the story of the Doctor, but also tells the story of a kid who was a bit of an outsider finding something special, of a man becoming a father, of politics past and present...the stories are both touching and funny.
Mostly though, the show is a chance for Doctor Who fans to relive a lot of memories and for fans and non fans alike to laugh a lot and have a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

(The fact that this particular show was in Cardiff, and the theatre right next to Torchwood, added an extra geeky joy to the evening.)

A national joke

What made BBC4's 'Rob Brydon's Identity Crisis' watchable wasn't just the way in which the comedian exiled in London for 20 years came to feel his roots so much more strongly for spending some time in the land of his fathers - by the end, any ambivalence about personal identity had been resolved, with Brydon once more a proudly self-confessed Welshman, much to his own surprise.

No, the interest also lay in the programme's exposure of the stand-up's art. Brydon was shown trying to construct a set of material about his home country, "borrowing" the comments of those he encountered where he could and then puzzling over how to pitch it right. At the first of his Welsh gigs, at the Glee Club in Cardiff, he suffered the indignity of a seriously lukewarm reception, but, led to reflect on his generally critical and sneering tone, subsequently modified his approach so as to be warmer, more inclusive and less superior - and in Pontardawe and particularly Aberdare it paid huge dividends.

What's more, in showing Brydon backstage, pacing backwards and forwards uncomfortably and impatiently, the programme also served as a reminder that even well-established and experienced stand-ups can suffer from pre-show nerves. It's a odd compulsion, to willingly choose to put yourself on a pedestal to be judged by a bunch of complete strangers (to paraphrase Stewart Lee), but thankfully there are plenty of people prepared to do it.

(The programme's still available to watch on iPlayer for the next couple of days.)