Omid Djalili

This weekend I had my mate James down from Leeds. (I should just note that I have three friends called James, so when I refer to them, it could be anyone of them.)

Anyway, this James, when I asked what he fancied doing, said he had always fancied doing a posh tea somewhere. I am of course the consummate arranger of such things, so I started the day by collecting him from Victoria, finding a pub for a cheeky pint and then going to the Millennium Hotel in Mayfair for a very posh tea.

On the way we went through Lower Grosvenor Gardens, a little scrap of greenery surrounded by traffic, so hardly an oasis of peace. But their most interesting features are the modern sculptures within.

Anyway, back to the posh tea, indeed a choice of teas, coming with a little egg-timer so that one could tell when your personal tea was properly stewed in its little teapot. Plus a selection of finger-sandwiches, scones with jam and cream, and cakes. All very nice. The weird bit was that in the whole place there was just one other bloke - out with his female partner. Every other person there was female. Otherwise it was a disparate clientèle - all age groups from old ladies to little girls with their mums, and all ethnic groups - a lot of black women for example. Just not gender equality. Whether there should be a government task force set up to try and encourage men to take up fine tea-drinking I don't know. You would think something should be done.

Duly sated we had just enough time to make a quick visit to the nearby Wallace Collection, before heading off to Hammersmith for dinner in an Italian restaurant. By this time I confess I wasn't too hungry after the afternoon tea, but we had to have an early dinner to get around in time to Hammersmith Apollo to see Omid Djalili. I had found he was on in the evening James was coming down, so thought that would be more entertaining than the pair of us sitting in a pub all night.

And it was. Omid always puts on a decent show. Not in the top rank of comics in my view. his material just isn't funny enough. It lacks a certain bite. But talented he is. His silly dances are a trademark, but he also does a great array of accents and has a superb singing voice. And he comes across as pretty genial too.

Although I think the best gag of the night didn't come from him but a member of the audience. The warm-up act, Boothby Graffoe, encouraged the audience to write questions for Omid to read out and answer at the end. A number of comics try this sort of thing - a part of the show to display their spontaneity as opposed to the scripted and rehearsed part.

Well Omid had played all night with the word "OMID" in block capitals behind him. So someone asked "Omid, do you have an older brother called Ohigh and younger one called Olow?" Well we thought it was good.