ahhh Kevin.... "The Man. The Dreams. The Journey" His show in Brisbane.

Funny, flirty, intelligent, slightly random - that was my evening with Kevin Mc Cloud on Wednesday.

Ok, so I had to share him with about two thousand others, but that didn't stop me from telling anyone who would listen that I was spending an evening with Kevin!

In a highly anticipated 'one night only' show I joined his legions of fans and secured my seat at the Lyric Theatre Brisbane for two hours of entertainment. 

All the car parks were full so after a slight panic that I was going to miss the start of the show I just about managed to fit the car into a tight spot wedged next to a post. This necessitated me clambering into the passenger seat to get out, inadvertently opening the boot in the process and almost losing a heel. Not quite the sophisticated entrance I was hoping for!

Anyhow, I followed the crowd to the theatre and took my seat and I sneaked a really quick photo of the stage  (I know from experience how vigilant the Lyric Theatre staff can be with photograph taking.) Then the familiar theme music came on and Kevin appeared to the delight of the crowd.

So there was no 'One Direction' screaming this week (see last post for all the screaming!) but the applause was generous and warm. Kevin wasted no time in telling us that he hated that theme music, really hated it....who knew? He also shared that Grand Designs is more popular here in Australia than back in the UK.

I immediately got a sense that this was going to be a chatty kind of night. Just Kevin pacing the stage and chatting. Now this is no mean feat as it was a one way chat. He got the occasional clap or chuckle but he carried on with his chatting regardless. It was a mixture of a stand up comic and an academic lecture.

He shared tales about some of the builds that he has covered and we were shown a few clips on the large screen to remind us. He used the screen to show us some architectural designs and influences and gave us a little quiz on our design type. I admit to feeling a bit homesick at times, especially when he showed the 14th Century castle from Series 7. I use to live close by to that.

There was some audience participation in the form of an invite on stage if your 'dream home' was read out so that Kevin could draw it out for you. The closest I came to that is that I work with one such lucky audience member and she's originally from Wales - Go Suzi!

Then there was the (pre-arranged?) cute child who was invited up to help with an experiment. I loved the lady in row 3 who caught his eye and demanded to be chosen to help as well....and he obliged. In his words "she has dressed up and made a real effort" . So did I Kev...so did I!
I thought that security would have to come and get her off the stage as she was slightly reluctant to leave...

He did make me laugh when he said that he had lots of beautiful young ladies approach him and then proceed to tell him that their mother liked him! There are a number of people that admit to having a bit of a soft spot for Mr McCloud.

During the interval we were encouraged to go mingle and have a drink and I may be wrong here, but I have a sneaky suspicion that Kevin may have indulged in a shandy or two. He was a bit more buoyant in the second half and the pacing increased. There were random references to toilets and a rather awkward dual act with the chappie that does the Australian version of Grand Designs who just happened to be sitting in the front row...

The evening concluded with a rather bizarre encore in the form of a poem/song. To be fair, it was actually quite clever and brought together lots of the information that we had been listening to for the previous couple of hours. One way of providing a summary I suppose.

Thank you for coming to Australia Kevin, you have lots of fans.