Review by Steve Bennett

Mrs Barbara Nice, the suburban creation of Janice Connolly, is a warm and wonderful act ­ an enthusiastic, livewire force of nature it's hard not to love.

On a basic level, she's an affectionate, well-observed and underplayed caricature of a slightly frumpy post-menopausal Stockport housewife who inhabits a lower-middle-class world of Poundstretchers and Take A Break magazine. But it is an affectionate, joyous celebration of such mundanities. Mrs Nice is ordinary, and proud of it.

This persona helps her organise the audience with the authoritative but kindly air of a playgroup leader. Even if occasionally her audience participation verges on the patronising, no one creates an uplifting mood quite like our Barbara; with the real fun stemming from her audacious set pieces in which she cajoles the audience to take part in the latest hare-brained stunt.

Here the incongruity between her ridiculous actions and her 'ordinary' image are funny and endearing - simply because you would expect her character to be more at home at a mothers' coffee morning than, say, stagediving to Iggy Pop.

The fact that she's genuinely enjoying these guilty pleasures only adds to the audience fun. No wonder she's fast becoming a cult favourite.

Review date: 1 Mar 2005
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett