Comedian Tim Vine is going out on tour as Plastic Elvis

Charismatic comedian Tim Vine will pay homage to his favourite performer, Elvis Presley, in a show touring to Derbyshire.
Tim Vine as Plastic ElvisTim Vine as Plastic Elvis
Tim Vine as Plastic Elvis

Tim, who has performed in five series of the BBC sitcom Not Going Out, hosted the ITV quiz Football Genius and appeared on the Dave channel’s Taskmaster series six, has been a fan of The King for most of his life. He said: “He’s by far my biggest showbusiness hero: I’ve got a picture of him in every room in the house.

“When I was eleven years old, I would stand in front of my bedroom mirror and mime to the whole of 1972’s Elvis: As Recorded at Madison Square Garden album. This is a tribute act that is forty years in the making. Well, the waiting is over. It’s time to go public.”

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He brings his show, Tim Vine is Plastic Elvis, to Buxton Opera House on April 3, 2021, a date which has been rescheduled from November 5 due to the pandemic.

As well as getting the voice and wit right, Tim knows that he has to get the look and stage manner spot on too. “There are some leg moves in there and the suit I’m wearing is uncomfortable. I might be at my thinnest ever at the end of this tour: if I’m still alive! Because the suit is plastic, it doesn’t breathe so the sweat stays in there. What I’ll do is turn the suit inside out and hang it up. On tour we’ll have to have two suits in rotation and that might be the same story with the wig. I’m thinking of growing some sideburns which will be a heck of a look if I dye them black. That will be interesting coming down for breakfast in the hotel: I’ll just be some bald guy with black triangles on his face.”

Initially encouraged by a friend and fellow Elvis impersonator to try out his act firstly in a pub and then in an arts centre, Tim used a backing track on both occasions. But he upped the ante for a one-off show at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe by appearing with a full live band, and they are all now heading out on tour.

“The High Noon Band are absolutely brilliant, so the music is great and the back catalogue to choose from is obviously incredible. The show is based largely on my own favourites so it’s not just all the obvious ones. Someone said to me that it was like watching Elvis doing an impression of me. When you see Elvis tribute acts, you don’t usually know them as anyone else whereas people coming along presumably know me, so there is some other layer there.

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"Although it is funny in parts, it’s definitely not a stand-up show: we’re trying hard to underline that: it’s me as Plastic Elvis. Put it this way: if you’re the sort of person who likes my stuff and likes Elvis, then definitely come. If you like Elvis, I’d say you should come. But if you just like me and hate Elvis, it might not be your thing.”

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For many years, Tim Vine has been doing a particular thing very successfully indeed. His live shows are jampacked with puns, visual gags, songs and wordplay that bamboozle and delight in roughly equal measure, featuring suitably silly yet clever titles such as Punslinger, Current Puns, The Joke-amotive, and Timtiminee Timtiminee Tim Tim To You.

Among his triumphs are winning the Perrier Best Newcomer prize at the Edinburgh Fringe of 1995 and breaking the Guinness World Record in 2004 for the most jokes told in one hour: that record stood for a whole decade.

Tickets cost £19 to see Tim Vine is Plastic Elvis at Buxton Opera House on April 3, 2021. Go to www. buxtonoperahouse.org.uk.