ARMS tightly locked in front of him, microphone raised under his chin, Josh Widdecombe is glowering at his audience.

His shrill outrage isn't directed at us - instead, he's turned his attention to real ale.

"But no one actually likes the taste," he insists, making the case for Becks in the face of strong audience opposition.

For Widdecombe is the champion of the regular, causing gales of laughter as he riffs on Christmas shopping, the politics of signing cards when in relationships and turbulence on planes.

He is sharpest with no material before him at all - 17-year-old audience member Reece providing a rich seam of jokes - but the best laughs of the night came when he considered his childhood in Dartmoor.

From his appointment-free Funfax to the high-sleeper bed with desk underneath via non-uniform days, Widdecombe just gets funnier as the evening wears on.

And although the gig was meant to be the second of his new tour, it was actually the first after a power cut ended play in Oxford.

The comedian, who is perhaps the only stand up to wheel a television set on a cart around with him for an encore, was to confess feeling nervous ahead of the new start to the tour.

But you'd never have known it.

He has a relaxed, warm and very likeable stage presence.

Widdecombe might not have known where the Tivoli Theatre actually was (discovering only when plugging the destination into his sat nav that Wimborne doesn't have a u) but there's no doubt he'd be warmly welcomed back anyway.