I’m easily distracted. There was the time when I was enjoying a family breakfast out when who should sit at the next table but Les Dennis and his then wife Amanda Holden. I struggled to compose myself as my wife started to blank me as she believed she’d get more sense out of our gurgling baby.

So when leading comic actor Simon Pegg enters the Borderline along with beautiful female companion, I can see the whole sorry process repeat itself before my very eyes. But then something happens. Instead of being distracted by Pegg, I find myself entranced by tonight’s support, Australia’s Angus and Julia Stone, a brother-and-sister duo who recall Beth Gibbon’s collaboration with Rustin Man as much as they do The Carpenters.

Headliner David Ford continues my fixation with what’s going on stage rather than any celebrity patronage. If you listened to Ford’s debut album I Sincerely Apologise For All The Trouble I’ve Caused you’d think him an earnest singer-songwriter in the vein of Damian Rice. Which he is, but to see him live is to witness a folk genius with the patter of a stand-up comedian.

“I want you to really enjoy yourself tonight,” Ford addresses the crowd before delivering the punchline: “but obviously keeping the mood down.” Wise-guy lines aside, the highlights of his set include a singalong version of ‘Cheer Up (You Miserable Fuck)’, in which Ford hilariously savages the attempts of the audience to sing in key, and ‘State of the Union’. He departs the stage leaving his “box of delights”, it’s a long story, playing.

The crowd desperate for an encore start clapping and banging their feet. Ford returns only to say, “Sorry, forgot to turn that thing off.” It raises a laugh, as does his cover of Free’s ‘All Right Now’. David Ford: a seriously funny performer.
(4/5)