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One of my favourite comedians of all time is Jasper Carrott, so when he was bringing an updated version of his “christmas cracker” to the N.E.C., I had to go along.

Rock With Laughter is a variety show of music, dance and comedy, compered by Carrott himself.

Carrott opened with his usual “Oggie Oggie Oggie” shouts and the punchline of “Isn’t it easy to entertain the Welsh!” before introducing the first act: Reelin’ and a Rockin’.

Reelin’ and a Rockin’ consists of five singers from the 50′s and 60′s performing a selection of rock and roll hits. Unfortunately, while they would seem like the perfect opening act, the reception was rather muted.

Carrott then introduced an unbilled addition – Bobby Davro. For me, he was the big surprise of the night. He was genuinely funny with some very original material. Bobby Davro for me conjours up images of 90′s game shows and cable TV, but if he was to do a stand-up tour off the back of this, he would definately be worth a look.

Next was the second musical act, Bev Bevan’s Move. I must confess that I’ve never heard of them, although I did know the song ‘Blackberry Way’. For a group on the nostalgia trail, they were very good and probably the highlight of the musical acts.

Bill Bailey was up next. I have always found him funny and he didn’t disappoint, combining comedy and music to great effect and culminating with the “Scale of Shame” audio-visual performance, with distorted images of dictators and poloticians accompanying quotes to hilarious results.

The Bootleg Beatles closed off the first half, although they looked more like the Beatles than they sounded like them. (In addition ‘Paul’ was playing right-handed – a big oversight!)

The second half was opened by Bonnie Tyler. Oh dear… Don’t get me wrong, I like Bonnie Tyler’s music, but she should really retire gracefully now. Opening with “Holding Out For a Hero” was a mistake. She couldn’t hit the notes and spent most of the performance apparently singing to the guitarist. The backing band were too loud for her, but whether this was to cover up her inadequecies as a singer is up for debate.

Tyler spend most of her performance in the middle of the stage and hardly interacted with the audience. She did improve however, and “Total Eclipse of the Heart” was passable, Tyler opting to sing the higher bits lower so she didn’t strain too much.

Perhaps she was suffering from a cold, in between songs she did sound very croaky, but with a singer like Bonnie Tyler, who speaks with a frog in her throat anyway, it is difficult to tell. A real disappointment.

The mood was lifted very quickly though, as Carrott introduced “The Oldest Blues singer in the World”… as the large man swaggered onto the stage, there was no doubt it was Lenny Henry.

A storming set, featuring two characterisations, the blues singer formerly mentioned, and “Lister” the shopkeeper from his recent TV series, interspersed with traditional stand up, as Lenny recounted his days as a boy growing up in Dudley. Definately the highlight of the show.

Finally, the last musical act… Last year’s “X-Factor” runners up (and incidentally the only ones with a record deal now) G4.

First things first, I don’t like G4, I never have, and so I am probably biased against them. However, as they opened with Nessun Dorma, it became quiet clear that G4 are really one bloke and 3 backing singers. The main singer’s voice, however, is far too harsh to sing Opera. I can listen to Opera, and appreciate the amount of skill an opera singer has over their voice, but one of those skills is the ability to sing softly. This guy can’t do that.

It was also apparent that G4′s appearance was mainly due to their upcoming push on the Christmas Singles chart, and they sang ‘their’ Christmas song… a cover of one of my favourite Christmas songs: “When a Child is Born”. Why do these boy bands have to ruin perfectly good original songs – why can’t they write their own christmas song?

Overall though, an enjoyable night of comedy… it’s just a shame the ‘Rock’ part disappointed.