It's been a strange career for Sheffield lad Richard Hawley. He's been treading the boards in covers bands since his teens - then long stints with the Longpigs and Pulp.

Once he decided to follow his uniquely country-esque Fifties songwriting path, he found the world ignored him. Until this year, when his album Coles Corner won the South Bank Show Pop Award and was nominated for the Mercurys.

Since then, Richard's gone from strength to strength.

A bequiffed almost 40-year-old man resplendent in a cream-coloured suit under a massive gold-glittered RH logo, he launched into swoonsome stand-out track Born Under A Bad Sign.

But not before he'd cracked a joke for the sell-out crowd. Because if the music ever fails, Hawley would have a good living as a stand-up comic. "Do you like the new sign up there?," Richard asked. "I bought it off Rolf Harris," he deadpanned. "Two Little Boys!," cried a member of the audience as a jokey heckle. "Listen, do I tell you about my problems?," Hawley batted back. People were crying laughing at his one-liners. Very sweary, but then so are most great jokers.

None of them, though, could deliver songs of such beauty between their gags, including favourites such as Hotel Room and The Ocean, which made me cry with it's heartfelt romance.