The US rapper brought his spectacular show to Sheffield last week. As befits the name of the tour, there were fluorescent sticks being sold all over the arena, and being eagerly snapped up by the rapper's young fans.

When the lights dimmed, the sea of glow in the dark sticks looked very impressive. The crowd, however, clearly got bored with holding them aloft and took to throwing them at the stage – where they, more often than not, hit West's energetic drummers.

One particularly burly drummer, who had been beating the drum with ferocity as the missiles were hurled in his direction, clearly had grown fed up with the sport by the end of the night. When he carried out the oft seen ritual of hurling his drumsticks into the crowd, you couldn't help but feel sympathy for him.



There were two interesting bits of news about London's West End this week, unrelated, but which impact on each other. The first is that Whoopi Goldberg is to produce a stage version of the hit movie Sister Act. In the film, Goldberg plays a woman, who, on the run from the mob, hides by pretending to be a nun and takes charge of a convent choir. Cue laughter, singing and, obviously, lots of big songs.

Meanwhile, Sir Tom Courtenay has been bemoaning the proliferation of musicals in London's West End.

In an interview, Sir Tom, the Hull-born actor who has gone on to become a national treasure, said he misses the days when the West End was full of plays. He said: "In my day, we learnt to tread the boards, which is what we wanted, and there were lots of plays on the West End stage. Now it's all musicals, which is a shame." We doubt he'll be shouting "whoopee" at the news of Sister Act coming to these shores.



Millions tuned in to see a galaxy of comedy stars celebrate the 60th birthday of Prince Charles last weekend at a televised comedy gig at the New Wimbledon Theatre.

Broadcast on ITV1 on Saturday night, viewers got to see some true comedy legends – Robin Williams and John Cleese were there and there was a treat in very rare live performances from Rowan Atkinson and Eric Idle.

Also on the bill was Stephen K Amos, a comedian who has been building audiences for over a decade now, with well received shows in Edinburgh.

The comedian included a story about the last time he came north and did a show in Leeds. His (frankly not very good) northern accent was put to good use in a sketch about the people of Leeds. Wonder how that will go down when he plays his gig on December 15? At the City Varieties. In Leeds.



Power point presentations and music gigs may seem an unlikely partnership, but then Jarvis Cocker has always been happiest standing on the edge of mainstream.

The Pulp frontman is currently playing a series of concerts to mark the 30th anniversary of indie record label Rough Trade and for audiences it should be something of an education.

"I was messing around with a power point presentation and thought it would be great to use it on stage," he said. "When I tell people they usually laugh, but I promise there will be no pie charts or complicated graphs, it's more about projecting images."