An Evening with Sylvester Stallone (Phones 4 U Arena)

It's not every day that you get to be in the same room as your Hollywood hero and for some fans the excitement of seeing Sylvester Stallone up close was too much to contain. A man on the front row leaps from his seat and shouts, "I love you!"

"I love you too, fella," Stallone laughs. This is repeated again, and again until Sandro Monetti, the journalist who is interviewing Stallone on stage jokes that he'll have to call security. The Arena staff do a 'we mean business' move, and Stallone's deep voice bellows across the arena, "Yo, Adrian! I love you." Everyone cheers and the crowd finally settles down.

To be fair, the audience had a long and frustrating wait. Stallone was late and the warm up acts were ill chosen for the event. Stallone is one of the few celebrities to have rightly earned the title superstar.

The people wanted to see him – poor Sue Black, however good a singer, she was never going to be a substitute, and neither were the acapella boy band that followed the montage of Stallone's best film moments on the large screen behind.

However, when Sly finally arrives, he does so in true action hero style. There is the roar of a helicopter, search lights fill the auditorium, several Royal Marines in combat gear and machine guns abseil onto the stage, the Rocky theme tune plays and we catch our first glimpse of Stallone on the screen, flanked by armed guards as he makes his way through the venue's corridors towards the stage, while the crowd chants, 'Rocky! Rocky!' The atmosphere is electric, and it feels worth the trip just for this moment.

Sly is looking good for his 68-years and he holds the stage in the arena as well as he holds the screen. He appears confident, relaxed and amiable. His anecdotes are funny and interesting, and there is a sense that he understands and his content with himself – he plays to his strengths and doesn't try to be anything he's not.

He talks about how he came to create Rocky, how one punch from Dolph Lundgren landed him in intensive care for five days, and why he was eleventh choice for Rambo – after a monkey and Neanderthal man. He also talks of regrets, what he had to give up to achieve his success on screen, the arrogance of his early days, and missing his daughter's graduation.

After about an hour he takes questions from the floor, and we get to see a more off the cuff, jovial side as he jokes with a fan dressed in a boxing robe, who has his signature tattooed on her arm. From the questions it's also clear how so many people in the audience have taken inspiration from this guy of humble beginnings who followed his dream.

And it's on that note he leaves them, exiting the stage like a motivational coach with punch, telling fans, "Grab your dreams by the throat and don't give up til you've got them."