Clary literally sparkles in this Western-inspired romp that makes a beeline for the heterosexual, over-50s husbands in the audience. ★★★★☆

Despite being a regular at the London Palladium Pantomime each year, in which Clary invariably steals the show, I had never actually seen his stand-up show.

I am not a fan of smut per se, but for Julian, I happily make the exception…

Clary is beguiling … with his outlandish pink costumes and placid countenance, he astutely announces that his costume does most of the work for him. But there is usually something more clever going on…

Bemoaning the introduction of self-scan checkouts, preventing him from having a nice chat with ‘a common woman’ on an M&S till, we all lapped-up Clary’s disdain for us, as a poorly dressed audience with nothing better to do with their time than see this “sh**e” on a Thursday night.

Clary tells us of his offers to do cruise ships: “It’s come to this…”, he utters, suggesting that he should run his own cruise liner for OAPs… Death on the Nile…

A highlight is a spirited number written by none other than Gary Wilmot that Clary performs in the second-half — an adoration of how Clary loves a knob…of butter (of course!).

Entertainment ★★★☆☆

Act 1 is splendid: anecdotes and rousing musical numbers –if you can count Clary’s signature tuneful whispers as singing. There is a touching tribute to Paul O’Grady (borrowed from the Palladium panto last year) to the tune of As If We Never Said Goodbye. We have the usual picking on members of the front row – why women would ever wear horizontal stripes to the front of Julian Clary show is beyond me! A lady with a particularly wild bouffant was asked if it was all natural … “nature can be so cruel…” Clary laments before strolling along to his next victim.

Act 2 is somewhat slower …straight, male members of the audience are invited up on stage to act in Clary’s play. This is risky, as the quality of the second half largely depends on the quality of the victims picked. Luckily, Clary has a good eye for the balding / bearded middle-aged punter and at our performance we had some amusing exchanges up on stage, after they had been selected from amongst the auditorium with a cattle prod (a requisitioned litter-picker).

Star Power ★★★★☆

Camp smut galore. This isn’t usually my thing at all…but I feel like Clary could say almost anything with his disdainful stillness and I’d be smiling. His costumes never disappoint – a western inspired pink ensemble for each act plus a bonus poncho and hat for the finale. If anyone knows how Clary achieves his sparkly red lip then please get in touch…

Value ★★★★☆

At around the £30 mark for the regional tour, this show is well worth seeing and was understandably a sellout. I am writing this review on the back of the highly disappointing Micky Flanagan performance last week in the same venue- where misguided hype, unruly audience members and extortionate ticket prices through Ticketmaster magnified a cheap and underwhelming performance. Julian Clary showed how it was done on a fraction of the budget… and has cemented himself by now as a consistent professional who know what the people have come for.

Even more importantly… the audience didn’t need to be drunk out of their minds to find him funny!