SOME fantastic place, this warm venue, and the lads’ songs, took us, Kinks-like, to some other fantastic, half-imagined world of muddy football matches, forlorn young romances and seaside ice-creams.

This old, grand theatre of a previous age felt right for what was almost a stage show by one of pop’s best odd couples: lyricist Chris Difford and melody maker Glenn Tilbrook.

The performance started with the pair asleep, like Morecambe and Wise, in a bed in a lovingly and seemingly expensively, recreated 1970s living room/bedroom; complete with horrendous wallpaper.

Then the first - black and white – image appeared on the large video screen behind the bed: a scribbled note, displayed in a sweet shop in 1973. It was the real advert for a guitarist written by Chris Difford in his local shop, which lied that he was in a hot band with tour booked.

A 15-year-old Glenn, egged on by his girlfriend, answered it and so began a sometimes warm, sometimes frosty friendship and song writing partnership that gave us major 1970s and 80s hits like Up the Junction, Cool for Cats, Labelled with Love and Tempted. All excellent, and all dutifully and joyfully played by the pair.

But it was the other, often better and still accessible songs that stole the show in between the pair’s jokey chat about their lives and music. Those songs deserve to be at least as famous, especially the one with the tear-jerking lyric and the joyful tune about a much-loved friend of both: the girlfriend who prodded Glenn into replying to that advert. She died horribly young and their tribute song to her, their finest, is some testimony: Some Fantastic Place.