Comedian Jasper Carrott and musician Bev Bevan have been great pals for 66 years, having developed a friendship while at senior school. After making their mark in their respective fields of entertainment, the Brummie chums are now performing together in Stand Up & Rock - a show that’s delighting their legions of fans wherever it lands...

Having each spent decades performing in sold-out arenas in front of thousands of fans, comedian Jasper Carrott and musician Bev Bevan are now touring the UK together with Stand Up & Rock - an evening of entertainment that fuses Jasper’s timeless comedy with the iconic music of The Bev Bevan Band. 
Former Ocean Colour Scene guitarist Andy Bennett also contributes as a special guest. 

“Stand Up & Rock isn’t a unique show, but nobody else does it,” says Jasper. “Nobody else mixes comedy and rock & roll as a featured evening.”

The experience of touring the country together would’ve seemed like a wild and crazy dream to Jasper and Bev when they first met one another - as 11-year-old schoolboys!

Jasper - real name Robert Davis - and Bev (short for Beverley) sat next to each other at Birmingham’s Moseley Grammar school, little knowing what the future had in store for them. 

Maintaining a friendship through their formative years and beyond, each went on to achieve enormous success - Robert/Jasper as a BAFTA Award-winning comedian, and Beverley as the acclaimed drummer of legendary bands The Move, Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) and Black Sabbath.

After finishing school, the two friends went to work at the same Birmingham department store, The Beehive, as trainee buyers.

“We swept the floor and made the tea,” says Bev, who was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2017. “I ended up in carpets but only stayed one year. I only got the job because it paid for the HP payments on my drums.”

Jasper, who stayed at The Beehive for three years, didn’t share Bev's showbiz ambitions at that time: “I was going to be an entrepreneur. I started a folk club - The Boggery - in 1969 and was always going to be a promoter and run clubs and manage people.

“I was just compering at the club and singing silly, funny songs, then one thing led to another and people started asking me to do their clubs.

“I was getting £12 a gig and petrol. The equivalent today would probably be £500 or £600. So it was very lucrative to the point where I realised my future lay in entertaining and not in promoting.”

Despite the pals not seeing much of each other in the years that followed, they still managed to be best man at each other's wedding - Bev in 1970 and Jasper in ’72.

Bev's music career had really taken off by that point. Leaving Denny Laine And The Diplomats to form The Move in 1966, he went on to play in ELO with Jeff Lynne and Roy Wood in 1970.

“I was always going to be a drummer,” says Bev, “and I think I could’ve made a living as a drummer too, but luckily I got into The Move, ELO and Black Sabbath - and to be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is pretty special.”

Jasper's career took off a considerable time after Bev’s, in 1975, with chart-topping comedy record Funky Moped. Numerous TV shows followed, including the BAFTA-winning Carrott's Lib and BBC comedy series The Detectives with Robert Powell.

When he brought his 24 Carrott Gold live show to Birmingham National Indoor Arena in 2004, he broke box office records, attracting a staggering 72,000 people across several performances.

“I have to keep pinching myself really,” says Jasper. “I haven't done TV for about 10 years, and it's great because I don't get the hassle of being recognised. I've got the best of both worlds in the fact that I can still draw a crowd and yet I can be fairly anonymous.

“One of my greatest pleasures was when my grandchildren came to see me and were really knocked out. For weeks they were doing the routines.”

The pandemic prevented the two old pals from working together, but with the tour now once again on the road, Jasper and Bev are thoroughly enjoying getting back to doing what they do best. 

“There was a bit of trepidation at first,” reveals Jasper, “not having worked for that long, but the minute we were on stage it disappeared.  

“We were playing to sold-out houses from the moment the tour began, and it’s been fantastic to see audiences coming back to the theatre, having a great laugh, rocking the house and just remembering what life’s all about.”

Bev agrees: “Rehearsals are just a means to an end, but as soon as you get on a stage and get that crowd reaction, it's fantastic - it's a real buzz. There's nothing to replace it.”

Alongside larger theatres, Stand Up & Rock is also visiting smaller venues - so is that more enjoyable for the performers?

“I generally love a small theatre, where you can actually see the audience and they can see you.” says Bev.

Jasper agrees: “Doing the 500, 600 seaters is going back in a way to those folk club days. For me personally one of the joys is getting back to the basic roots of stand-up comedy, eyeball to eyeball with the audience.”

So what does the future hold?

“Staying alive is probably one of our main ambitions,” jokes Jasper. “We'll just take it tour by tour. Ken Dodd was 90 and still getting up on stage. I don't know how long I can continue, but I will do so until I know I can't do it as well as I should be doing it. But hopefully that's a way off.
“And I can always become a drummer!”

Stand Up & Rock stops off at The Albany Theatre, Coventry, from 24 to 26 March; Victoria Hall, Stoke-on-Trent, 14 April; Lichfield Garrick, 27 to 30 April & 4 to 7 May; and Palace Theatre, Redditch, 18 to 21 May.