Weekend Pick: Pencil it in

FOR those people bored with the alpha male race to the lowest common denominator which passes for a lot of TV panel game comedy, then there is the perfect show coming to Liverpool tomorrow.

Howard Read’s remarkably inventive and admirably bonkers children’s show ‘Little Howard And The Magic Pencil Of Life And Death’ gives as much entertainment to adults as the little ones.

Mr Read, the ‘Big’ in Big Howard and Little Howard, is the leading light in the growing comedy-for-children movement and will be lionised by the younger ones in your lives thanks to his two successful series of BH & LH for CBBC.

Little Howard is Read’s cartoon alter ego, an animated anarchic child who gets himself into all manner of scrapes.

It’s inventive, clever and silly and, as the Daily Telegraph notes, ‘Just the right side of rude.’ It’s scatological, but then as the editor of the website noted some time ago, most young boys are.

For people used to seeing straight stand-up - a bloke with a microphone - then this is a totally different experience. With Big Howard interacting with Little Howard via his computer and video screen, it’s a proper theatre experience, only this time in the intimate surroundings of a comedy club. The show will be touring theatres from the spring.

So see it here first as the perfect pre-Christmas present for children - only with added poo and wee.

*Tongue in Cheek Comedy presents Little Howard And The Magic Pencil Of Life And Death at Lenny’s Bar and Grill, Sat, December 11, 2pm. Tickets at the laughterhouse comedy website or by calling 0151 227 5946