Best known for her impressions of numerous female politicians and celebrities, television and radio star Jan Ravens delighted a packed audience at Corsham’s Pound Arts Centre with her debut solo show, A Funny Look at Impressions.

Ravens, star of Dead Ringers and Strictly Come Dancing and recent victor of Celebrity Mastermind, took the audience on a historical tour through satirical impersonation.

She recounted the story of her own journey into impressions and examined the reasons for the popularity of the genre – as well as causing general hilarity with some of her most popular and successful impressions.

Anne Robinson, Fiona Bruce and the Queen all received the Ravens treatment.

The sketch depicting Nigella Lawson sensuously filling in a tax return had the audience in stitches and her impersonations of some of Labour’s most powerful women MPs were acute and devastatingly funny.

Ravens also included a brief learn-how-to-impersonate Janet Street-Porter session, which the audience joined wholeheartedly: surely the first time an audience has been urged to ‘channel Kenneth Williams.’ The show was also self-examining – Ravens discussing her own motivations and questioned whether her mockery of women in the public eye was anti-feminist.

Personal, compassionate, quick-witted, intelligent and achingly funny, the show was fabulous and Ravens’ nationwide tour is likely to guarantee her enormous acclaim and boost her already formidable level of success.