Epic new show for the pub landlord Al Murray

Al Murray will headline Wolverhampton's Civic Hall tonight with a routine set in a broken Britain, which is staring into the bottom of an empty pint glass.

Murray, The Pub Landlord, will urge people not to lose hope in his brand new show.

Britain's most irrepressible innkeeper is set to serve up his premier brew of ale-inspired acumen and bar-room buffoonery as part of a major tour.

The show follows the nationwide success of the Guv's twice-extended Barrel of Fun tour.

Murray said: "The one unifying thing for all stand-up comics is that they are all show offs!

"That's the unifying theory of comedy: you've got clever ones, you've got quiet ones, you've got intellectuals…whatever.

"A lot of people try and deny that, or try and fudge that, but I think that's the case."

Murray has proved himself popular with critics, winning a series of rave reviews.

The Daily Telegraph said: "A National Treasure – Five Stars", while The Sun reported: "His interaction with the front few rows is legendary."

Murray's Pub Landlord character is a mock-xenophobic but stereotypical public house licensee and has been a firm favourite for many years.

In 2003, he was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy while in 2007 he was named the 16th greatest stand-up comic on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups.

The performer actually started out studying history at Oxford University.

"The interesting thing about history is that you can look back at a time and say, 'Well, those are the important events'.

"The problem with living in the right-now is that you don't know what's really going on.

"You can't tell what the important things are; and the noisy things often turn out to be not important at all.

"And the quiet little things, that you don't hear about at all, going on in the background, are actually the things that are shaping the direction of the world.

"The interesting thing about history is that you can look at 1960 and go: right, that, that, that and that are the key events, that looked like it could have been but it wasn't really.

"It looked like a key event but really that's just where the heat and the noise and the light were; but actually, the important decisions were being made here. All that stuff."

Tickets for The Only Way is Epic are available at www.wolvescivic.co.uk or by calling 0870 320 7000.

By Andy Richardson