Charlie Sheen turns around his fortunes in Chicago

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Sunday 03 April 2011 19:00 EDT
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(AFP PHOTO/Mark RALSTON)

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After a fiasco in Detroit, troubled US actor Charlie Sheen appeared to have turned around his fortunes here, delivering a largely successful show that ended with an ovation.

"Instead of the disjointed exercise in hero worship he had presented on night one of his theatrical tour in Detroit Saturday, Sheen mostly sat and fielded an interviewer's questions, bantering with the crowd, dropping the F-word, and actually seeming to satisfy, if not amaze, concertgoers," said a review in The Chicago Tribune.

The spectators appeared to be significantly friendlier. Instead of booing him off stage like it happened in Detroit, they were reported to chant: "Detroit sucks."

All 3,600 tickets for Sheen's show at the Chicago Theater were sold, with seats selling for $40 and up.

The gig one night earlier in Detroit to a packed 5,000-strong audience started well, with a spoof involving news clips of the actor's recent outbursts, and high-action excerpts from classic movies including "Apocalypse Now," starring his father Martin.

But the boos began during a stream-of-consciousness monologue by Sheen at a presidential podium - the kind of verbal fireworks he has displayed online, but which patently failed to grip Saturday's audience.

After commenting several times on the fact that he was being booed, and getting increasingly tetchy as the stream of people walking out grew, Sheen said would take a break while a video of a new Snoop Dogg video was played.

When the video finished, the lights came up, and it was clear that Sheen was not coming back on stage.

Sheen was sacked last month from "Two and a Half Men" after criticizing its producers in a series of rambling media outbursts which Warner Brothers called the actor "dangerously self-destructive conduct."

The 45-year-old then became an Internet sensation after launching a Twitter feed which now has 3.4 million followers, and an online webstreamed show, "Sheen's Korner."

At the same time he announced his plans for the live tour, which now has more than 20 scheduled dates over the next month, after tickets for the first gigs sold out within 18 minutes.

Before Saturday's show fans had lined up to defend the star, a legendary party animal whose recent crisis came shortly after he ended up in hospital following a marathon bender with five women including a porn actress.

But the mood after the Saturday fiasco was a mixture of disappointment and anger, with some fans talking about asking for their money back.

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