STEWART LEE is all cheeky grin, telling us we're just not quick enough to the punchline.

Other crowds, he says, laugh in anticipation. They're ahead of us.

"This is a big venue for a crowd of your experience," he chides.

"You'd be better off in Chapter."

This is a gig to prepare material for his upcoming TV show.

"Some of you might have seen my last show which was carefully woven together in the last three minutes...this is nothing like that," he says.

We have instead a train of thought which appears, for most of the gig, to be a runaway one - but, yet, this is Stewart Lee. A point is always within spitting distance.

He is riffing on whether animals are always satirical - definitely not, says Lee, who is surprised by an audience member's suggestion of an axolotl for a hypothetical scenario.

Lee has to go away during the break and look it up. Not such a slow crowd now, eh Mr Comedian?

There is also a masterly reductio ad absurdem of the UKIP stance on immigration, a treatise on ridiculous real ale names, and hilariously scathing treatment of liberal arty types who support David Cameron.

Throw in the encore idea of executing Scooby Doo, and we have the Lee experience. Can't wait for the TV show.