Sir Lenny Henry; the Pride of Dudley and indelibly woven into the fabric of the nation since his first appearance as Frank Spencer in TV’s New Faces in 1975. He’s always been an excellent mimic; I remember watching that first appearance one Saturday night and he was a complete breath of fresh air. An amazing entertainer, at such a young age.

Now aged 68, he’s back on tour, and, as the title of the show has it, Still at Large – and he very much is. On stage he’s a curious mix of relaxed and animated; he likes to keep moving but it’s a very languid, almost lollopy way he has of perambulating around the stage. But he has an easy charm, a quick wit, and an assured delivery, with some first-rate relatable material combined with some very entertaining memories of an astonishing career.

The show is a mixture of stand-up, Q&A, and nostalgia wallowing – and there’s nothing wrong with that, particularly as his career has so many hilarious highlights to look back on. It is ironic that with such starry CV over so many decades, the one thing most people remember him for is having water chucked over him as Trevor McDoughnut on Tiswas. My advice (for what it’s worth) is Gwapple Me Gwapenuts, don’t knock it. That’s a heritage that we all love to remember; it was a privilege to be a teenager in the Tiswas years and it’s definitely something to be proud of. Fortunately, he didn’t give us a performance of the Bucket of Water Song; although there was the unexpected pleasure of a musical interlude from a famous star from the sleazier end of the spectrum at the end of the show.

He manages to make the large Derngate auditorium into an intimate stage where he can share jokes and singalongs with members of the audience, frequently bouncing off them in order to start a new topic. We learn that he now lives “in the country” and is one of three black men in the village; he lives with partner Lisa who enjoys cajoling him into long country walks because it will “do him good”. He’s not averse to appearing on the odd reality show when he has a sizeable builder’s bill coming in; those snug extensions don’t come cheap. He is feeling his age; at 68, he celebrated the fact that he travelled from Birmingham to Northampton without needing a wee – a happy life is based on mini victories.

The Q&A section was, in the best Frankie Howerd tradition, largely scripted although I think there were one of two genuine new questions in there. This gives him an excuse to bring out some enjoyable old clips, and to tell a very funny anecdote about rehearsing the role of Othello with the famously down-to-earth director Barrie Rutter. Overall, his material is very well structured and his lines meticulously planned and delivered, which allows for some excellent callbacks and killer punchlines. And who would have guessed Theophilus P Wildebeeste has undergone therapy and is now seeking consent in his lyrics?

The Lenny Henry Still at Large tour is nearing its end but there are two more dates in Brighton and Hackney. If you’ve grown up with Lenny as part of a lifetime of happy memories, you won’t want to miss it.