There is no music, or physical comedy, just Frank and a microphone entertaining us for a couple of hours. This is without the aid of a script or any visible prompts and he’s terrific, his conspiratorial manner drawing the audience in and reminding fans why they warm to him so much on TV chat shows.

Frank works the crowd, picking on various people in the audience, including a woman whose phone goes off in the middle of the show.

“I’m getting divorced,” says the woman, clearly miffed with her fella and Frank seems genuinely concerned before cracking another joke.

There are some lovely one liners throughout the show, which other comedians on the circuit will no doubt borrow at some point.

My own favourites included: “I have never had a Toblerone without experiencing some bruising”, “I kissed Emma Bunton on both cheeks — it required a short walk” and, during a riff about relationship strife, “the row was never over, it was bookmarked”.

The presenter’s new show is called Man In A Suit and sure enough he’s in one — a shiny grey number teamed with some unshowbizlike grey loafers.

If there’s a theme to the material it’s the effect being a celebrity has on Frank and the people around him.

It turns out Man In A Suit owns about 90 of them because he gets to keep them following TV appearances.

Recognising this as excess, Frank gives some to charity and questions how charities work and whether we should give more or less.

I suspect the comedian does quite a lot for charity — perhaps to offset his Cathlolic guilt. After wondering how much he would raise if he sold his suits on eBay under his own name, as opposed to leaving them with Oxfam, he pokes fun at the middle classes ridiculing Waitrose’s charity scheme, in which customers are given a green token and asked to choose between helping “the depressed, children with brittle bones or the donkey sanctuary”.

Aware there will be some highly educated comedy fans in the audience, Frank throws in a few short poems but the audience has not come here for haikus so he switches to a smutty section featuring his musings on the mechanics of various sex acts.

I didn’t find this material particularly offensive but it wasn’t that funny either and I did wonder if his heart is still in being a lad now he has graduated to a family man.

Frank Skinner’s new show is relentlessly entertaining, if a little smutty, but it is thought-provoking too, with many a true word spoken in jest.