YOU couldn’t get terribly offended by Michael McIntyre. After bounding on stage with all the enthusiasm of a slightly dippy Labrador, he spied a young lad in the front row. “How old are you?” he asks. “Twelve,”

comes the reply. “Hm, you might learn a few things tonight,” he says.

But really, McIntyre is far from rude and crude. Sure, there’s jokes about sex, things you don’t want to see in men’s changing rooms and things that probably shouldn’t be mentioned in a family newspaper, but he’s such an inoffensive presence it would be hard for a maiden aunt to tut tut.

I had my doubts ahead of the gig. The MetroRadio Arena is a big venue for one man to carry, something McIntyre gave a nod to when he asked people at the back if it was like watching TV back there. As it is, he carried it off well.

He bounds, he skips, he fills the place with energy, and skitter scatters from subject to subject that has the audience muttering “yup, I do that”.

Be it the strange rituals of shoe buying, the perils of morning breath or the living room athletics of playing the Wii that scare the bejeezus out of your kids, his comedy strikes a chord.

He doesn’t often hit a punchline – occasional ones such as the man in the Starbucks ordering a tall, black Americano and McIntyre quipping: “Are you ordering a coffee or a president?” – but as an arena full of tickled ribs will agree, he definitely left his mark.