TO be fair, you would expect your own mother to be on the list of admirers of your efforts on the stage.

You would expect the maternal flesh and blood to airbrush over the flaws, to filter out the blemishes, to let familial pride put a shine on your thespian activities.

The fact that it’s your own mother offering praise may be expected, but it still counts. At least in my book it does.

Listen, I’m not fussy. I’m happy to take praise from whatever quarter it comes.

She will happily tell you that my rendition of Christmas Carol is greatly enjoyed by her.

One of the highlights of Christmas no less.

A triumph. Fulsome in her praise she is.

What’s perhaps less flattering to reveal is that the reason she enjoys it so much is because it sends her to sleep almost immediately.

Within seconds. Being as she is a lifelong insomniac, this quality is not to be sneezed at. Or snored at.

Such is the rapidity of the soporific effect it’s like a race to whether I can reach the end of the first line before she is spark out.

The opening line reads...ahem: “Marley was dead, to begin with, dead as a door nail, there is no doubt whatever about that”

And hey presto! She’s completely comatose. It’s like a cruise ship hypnotist act. The hypnotist clicks their fingers at she’s off.

Out faster than if she’d been fetched up the bracket by one of Henry Cooper’s famous left hooks. Ask Muhammed Ali. He knows what that feels like.

Ali, or Cassius Clay as he then was, was dropped by the famous punch in June 1963.

He got up to win the fight. But perhaps, had he been poleaxed with the soporific force that is the first line of my rendition of Christmas Carol, I reckon he may well have stayed on the canvas, out for the count.

Only coming round some 90 minutes later with the concluding words of Tiny Tim.

I’m out and about performing the show throughout December.

With the magnificent Jamie Cunliffe tickling the ivories, we’re here, there and everywhere concluding with two candlelit performances at good old Colchester Arts Centre.

Tickets for all events are still available. If you can make it through the first line, it’s a beautiful story and we love telling it.

Call me on 07814 695598 for tickets or more information.

Tour dates: November Saturday, 30: Langham 7.30pm

December Sunday 1: Feering 4 pm

Sunday 1: Mersea Island 8pm

Monday 2: Layer Marney Tower 7.30pm

Tuesday 3: Colchester, Wimpole Road 2.30pm

Thursday 5: Colchester Officers Club 7pm

Friday 6: Maldon 8pm

Saturday 7: Great Bentley 5pm

Sunday 8: Colchester St Botolphs 3pm

Sunday 8: Wetherden 7.30pm

Tuesday 10: Brightlingsea 7.30pm

Thursday 12: Witham 8pm

Friday 13: Brightlingsea 2pm

Friday 13: Creeting 7.30pm

Saturday 14: Dovercourt 7.30pm

Sunday 15: Tollesbury 3pm

Sunday 15: Colchester Oak Tree Centre 6pm

Monday 16: Colchester Trinity Street 7pm

Thursday 19: Sudbury 7.30pm

Friday 20: Brightlingsea 7pm

Saturday 21: Rowhedge 5pm

Saturday 21: Stanway Community 7.30pm

Sunday 22: Lexden, St Leonards 2.30pm

Sunday 22: Manningtree 7.30pm

Monday 23: Colchester Arts Centre 7.30pm

Tuesday 24: Colchester Arts Centre 7pm