One of Sunday’s newspapers reported that Michael McIntyre was on the point of signing a six-figure deal with the BBC and looked in line to succeed to Jonathan Ross’s Saturday night TV slot.

On the evidence of the show he gave that night to a packed New Theatre, this is going to be money well spent. For more than two hours, unaided, he held the audience in rapt attention with a stand-up routine as brilliant as any I have witnessed, including those of Ricky Gervaise, Billy Connolly and Russell Brand.

Coming immediately after his success at the London comedy night in honour of the Prince of Wales’s 60th birthday, which had been televised the night before, the show found McIntyre bursting with confidence. Bursting, just ever so slightly, too, from his suit: one of his funniest routines showed how the buttoned-up jacket’s steady ascent during the royal performance had turned him into a “man with breasts”. For visual hilarity this was bettered only by his impersonation of the ballet-dancing Scottish gay seen recently in the Big Brother house.

Unlike many other people’s, his observational comedy has the virtue of observing aspects of life that are recognisable to his audience. The contents of the sole ‘man’s drawer’ at his Muswell Hill home, for instance, clearly reflected, judging by the whoops of recognition, that of many other men’s (mine included). Among the clutter were out-of-date foreign currency, flat batteries, old keys and the instruction manuals for long-departed electrical goods.

McIntyre does perfect accents (Welsh, Irish, Scots, Geordie, Liverpudlian et al); he offers a ready, spontaneous wit (as is seen in his jovial joshing of members of the audience); he projects a warm and intelligent personality; he even does some good impressions, including a priceless one of last week’s New Theatre visitor Jools Holland. In short, he is going to be a very big star – and deserves to be.