Greg Davies Full Fat Legend at Royal Albert Hall review: 'charisma, precision timing and earthy vulgarity'
Greg Davies hasn't toured for seven years, but he has not been idle. As the power-crazed host of Channel 4's Taskmaster the six-foot-eight-inch ex-teacher has become a towering TV star. Add in his presenter duties on Never Mind The Buzzcocks and his sitcom The Cleaner and it is no surprise it has taken him a while to get back on stage.
The funny thing is that the main role he references during his expansive, entertaining set is Mr Gilbert, the sixth form head in his early sitcom The Inbetweeners. He suggests that this is why men in vans shout "legend" at him in the street. This term of affection has inspired the title of his show, Full Fat Legend.
Davies, however, wonders whether he deserves the accolade and after a scene-setting filmed intro which features him dousing himself in dairy product he embarks on a deep dive into his life to decide if he lives up to the epithet. After all, as he admits, he is no Marie Curie or Muhammad Ali.
This framework is essentially the washing line on which he hangs his comedic laundry. Recent embarrassments, scrapes from his youth. Some stories are slightly lavatorial. Some are extremely lavatorial. If you have an aversion to toilet humour, this is not the show for you.
He starts with a confession about his dodgy prostate which means frequent bladder-based bedtime interruptions. Eventually he resorted to the pint glass by the bed. It is glaringly obvious what the punchline is going to be, but what the anecdote lacks in originality Davies makes up for with a combination of charisma, precision timing and earthy vulgarity.
Elsewhere there is lots of namedropping, from a sparky early TV appearance when fellow guest Danny Dyer managed to give himself an electric shock to being invited to Buckingham Palace alongside Benedict Cumberbatch and wondering why he was actually there.
In stark contrast to his Taskmaster despot, Davies is the fall guy throughout, from bemoaning his resemblance to a "walking bag of suet" to asking his bowel specialist brother-in-law to examine his "baggy bumhole".
Alongside these riotously ribald routines there are childhood reflections. 1970s Shropshire was a land that woke forgot, where bullying was rife and prams were left unguarded outside shops for sex offenders to peruse like a "paedophile pick and mix".
But this show is essentially about underlining that Davies is more lummox than legend. He is less interested in highlighting societal iniquities and more interested in revealing how he accidentally telephoned a member of Parliament with his own member when he decided to carry his mobile in his pants.
This is not sophisticated, but neither is it cruel or cynical. Davies' heart is clearly in the right place despite the fact that he still bullies his sister. Is he a legend? Maybe not in the Curie or Ali department, but when it comes to the childish, self-mocking stand-up category, as his Bond-theme intro music puts it, nobody does it better.
OVO Arena Wembley, Thursday. Eventim Apollo, March 5 - 7, 12 - 14, 2026. And touring. gregdavies.co.uk
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