Appearing at the Concert Hall earlier this year, this was Micky Flanagan's second visit to Nottingham in a single tour.
But he packed the place out and warmed to his themes with his East End swagger growing ever more lively and vociferous as the show progressed.
We've seen him on TV more and more over the past couple of years but he's restricted by that format and laps up the atmosphere created by a live stage act.
A late starter to comedy he's had a “real life” before becoming a performer and draws on this to tell his tales.
There are tales of his – and our – younger days which ring true with the middle aged members of the audience and educate anyone younger.
From the days when pet dogs weren't in charge, when instead of them ordering you to pick up their poo, old men used to come out of the pubs at night and kick them. When you could round up kids with a lit cigarette and when you used to see more old folk with warty faces.
Simple observations of a days gone by and a Britain we'll never return to. When his cooler schoolmates used to affect a pretend limp, when he used to stay up all night to see a fleeting shot of female breast in an old vampire film, or when he was sent to the corner shop to pick up his mum's over-sized sanitary products.
We learned of the tricks of the trade of being an adult married man. The difference between girls' nights in and boys' nights out.
Having two off-licences on the go: one for the trendy bottle of wine at 7.30pm and another who's more compliant for the 11.30pm old-school snifter. As Micky tells the shopkeeper: “I won't say anything about you splitting the multi-packs of beans if you don't say anything about my late night wine.”
He does a neat routine on the various drugs someone of his age might have had access to as an ordinary manual worker (he's over 50 now) – a trail of discovery that seems almost romantic now.
And even the tale of how 9/11 saved his relationship somehow rings true.
A slick show, and the evening just flew by.
No support for Micky, though. He's got plenty to say himself, plenty of front and an uplifting, energetic delivery.
