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Claudia Aurora said she had a cold; that she was hungry; that she had been on the M25 all day. It was a measure of how composed and stately her performance was that some in the audience were not inclined to believe her. Not that she was in any way a primadonna – when her performance ran over, she asked, rather than demanded, that the lights were dimmed for one more song. Backed by unobtrusive violoncello, jaunty double bass and guitar, she delivered her shimmering set of traditional Portuguese folk music, dramatic and affecting.

Komedia, 27 May
Rating:
Jim Milnes

In 2002 John Osborne won a box of records in a competition on John Peel’s radio show and while working at a boring data entry job he set himself the challenge of listening to a different radio station every day for a year. These two events, along with his discovery of Philip Larkin’s poetry, changed his life and the show was his charming and bashful account of what happened. The autobiographical tale was punctuated with amusing anecdotes he had heard on the radio during his year’s experiment and a selection of tracks from some of the obscure records from John Peel’s shed. Funny and endearing.

Upstairs at Three and Ten, 28 May
Rating:
Jenni Davidson

Indie popstar, comedy legend, successful author – what next for Charlie Higson? Writing a series of zombie books designed to scare the living daylights out of the nation’s nippers, of course!

This intelligent and un-patronising lecture began with an erupting volcano 200 years ago and covered Byron, Shelley and Stoker in detail, via the best way to dispense with suspected zombie family members, before concluding that vampires are for girls and zombies for boys.

This entertaining hour ended with a short Q+A that revealed a Flymo was Charlie’s weapon of choice if faced with an attack from the undead.

Sallis Benney Theatre, 28 May
Rating:
Steve Clements

Damian Barr’s account of the history and making of gin seemed rushed and slightly garbled, but that was followed by an amusing selection of quotes from literature to do with gin drinking. You can’t really go wrong with alcohol and funny quotes and the more gin we consumed the more entertaining it was. We tried an interesting variety of cocktails, including naval-style gin and water, martinez, a summer punch of cloudy apple juice and a gin fizz made with cucumber and chilli, and there was a warm rapport between Charlie the bartender, who explained what he was making and the background to the cocktails, and Damian Barr who served up the literary references.

Hendrick’s Horseless Carriage of Curiosities, 29 May
Rating:
Jenni Davidson