Sunday For Sammy, Newcastle City Hall (From The Northern Echo)

Sunday For Sammy, Newcastle City Hall

11:36am Tuesday 9th February 2010

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ONLY at the North-East’s sell-out of Geordie entertainment could you see legend of guitar Mark Knopfler being thrown off stage twice, just a few bars into his Dire Straits’ hits.

In spite of a burst of boos from the audience, co-hosts Tim Healy and wife Denise Welch insisted he was “a noisy b*****k” and they should have booked Bert Weddon. Even when the red guitar was flourished in earnest, Alan Shearer appeared by the magic of video screen to tell Knopfler to play “his hit”, which turned out to be the instrumental, Local Hero.

With all 4,000 seats sold for two performances, around £320,000 has been raised on behalf of the late Sammy Johnson, which will add even further to 155 grants given so far by the fund towards putting more North-East talent on stage. Singers Ruth Jenkins, Hayley McKay of Hurworth, and Louise Henderson, harpist Emily Hoile and poet Kate Fox, showed how the fund cash was being spent with sparkling results.

The traditional Auf Wiedersehen Pet sketch, now down to originals Healy, Kevin Whately and Chris Fairbank, with Timothy Spall chipping in via video, was a joy alongside Welch leading out the Geordie version of TV’s Loose Women, Slacklasses, in a riotous, far from fluff-free skit.

Kathryn Tickell, former Corrie star Kevin Kennedy, Andrea McLean, of Loose Women, and Angela Lonsdale were among a host of stars letting down their hair for charity.

Brendan Healy turned out to be a show-stealer and proved that, if TV executive eyes were looking east instead of exclusively west, then a weekly show of North-East talent would be a ratings winner.

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