My Nana has often said, when someone invites you somewhere, you should go. Sage advice. Jo called me the other day from work and asked would we like tickets to Little Britain. I said “When someone invites you somewhere, you go.”

If you are not familiar, Little Britain is one of the more popular shows on the BBC. It features Matt Lucas and David Walliams and is a sketch comedy show featuring a host of recurring characters. The first time I saw the show, I could not believe that they were allowed to even put it on telly.

So popular is this television show that the performers have taken it on the road. The entire run has been sold out for a year in advance. The usual reaction that I got when I said that we were going to see the live show was that the tickets were printed on unobtainium. If you didn’t have them a year ago, you weren’t going to get them. So we were quite lucky.

The show is on at the Hammersmith Apollo in the west end of London. To get there, you just have to grind and rattle to the end of the Hammersmith & City tube line. The Hammersmith Apollo stage has been graced by such luminaries as Iron Maiden, Eddie Izzard and David Bowie. The hall features in the title of Motörhead’s 1981 live album no sleep ‘til Hammersmith. Johnny Cash played there in 1966 and Neil Young played there and lit part of it on fire!

The characters include Daffyd, the only gay in his little village in Wales There is Andy in the wheelchair and his condescending carer Lou and Vickie Pollard, the chav from the council estates. The Prime Minister has a gay assistant, Sebastian, who is obviously jealously in love with his boss. There is the two most obvious cross dressing men and a woman who projectile vomits if she is shown anything the least bit foreign.

I know that if you haven’t seen the show, then my description does no justice. I wondered how they would translate the sketch comedy TV show to the stage, but as the show is so heavily based on its characters, they were able to carry it off handily. The two main performers are adept at both the characters and at ad-libbing. The can carry the script and when the unexpected happens, such as a false moustache coming adrift mid-sketch, they can take off in very good ad-libs.

The strength of the show is the way the characters are written. Some are cringe-worthy, some are sad and some are disgusting. The thing that makes them good is that the writers use them to skewer our prejudices. Under each of the characters is a piece of everyone, as reluctant as you might be to admit it after seeing them.

There seems to be an endless choice of lavish and stage shows in London. Dirty Dancing is playing now (Nobody puts Baby in a corner!) as well as the usual selection of tourist trap musicals. I wish to see none of them. Little Britain was funny and well worth seeing. Jo and I are glad we went. Nana is right.