Expect the unexpected when you see a Russell Hicks show and you won’t be disappointed. Many’s the time when we’ve seen him and any pre-prepared material goes right out of the window as he riffs off whatever the audience chuck at him – his ability to think on his feet is off the scale. Through his conversations with the crowd at yesterday’s show, we met the guy from Bugbrooke who gets fired loads of times, the accountant from Bedford who only likes the river there, the two couples sitting separately who’d seen Russell’s show in Luton where he was almost assaulted, the lady whose doorbell alarm on her phone wouldn’t stop, and the man who was only there for the accents.

Plenty of elements of his new show didn’t go entirely to plan last night in the Underground – thanks to David in the tech box – but that’s pure grist to his mill and creates even more hilarious chaos. All human life is here, as they say; and it’s comedy gold for Russell to mine whenever he wants.

This Time It’s Personal delves – as the title suggests – a little deeper into what makes Russell tick, how he got to where he is, how his somewhat unusual childhood upbringing motivated him to work in comedy and the lessons learned along the way. It could be rather serious material – but not the way Russell Hicks tells it! His main thread in the show is his part-disastrous, part-life changing experience of working as a comedian on a cruise ship. I think he’d be the first to admit that he’s not the most obvious choice of cruise comedian – and his account of dealing with the entertainment director, his rivalry with a magician too intelligent for his years and the audience (largely too old to notice) makes for a series of terrific anecdotes. Naturally, I’m not going to tell you how his experience resolved itself, you’ll have to see his show to find out!

Always a delight to see Mr H – his tour continues into June so don’t miss out on this opportunity to see a master at work!