Rocking on the cuban heels of his pink boots, the inimitable John Cooper Clarke surveyed the Lighthouse audience with curiosity.

“I’ve known people from Poole Harbour since before the Japs got to you,” he quipped in his deadpan Mancunian accent.

So started an evening of heady wordplay, poetry and pure stand-up comedy. At 67, the one-time punk poet, has morphed into a kind of national treasure from the leftfield of the entertainment world.

He’s still stick-thin but his trademark man-in-black look has softened. Apart from the pink boots there’s a flash of henna about the hair, a grey jacket and even a red and black tie.

What hasn’t changed is the deadly machine-gun style delivery, the glint in the eye as the verbal punches hit home and the sense of joy that he finds from exploring his sense of the absurd..

Thirty years ago Cooper Clarke was in the grips of a fearful heroin addiction. Few thought he’d survive let alone go on to thrive into the 21st century but he kicked the habit in the early 90s and gradually re-emerged.

Today he’s bigger than ever. He’s even got an honorary doctorate from the University of Essex.

His fans were out in force last night to celebrate as he performed the big hits like Beasley Street and Evidently Chicken Town.

Predictably perhaps those works were the ones that seemed to be delivered on automatic. John Cooper Clarke has never been about nostalgia.

This show with sterling support from two brilliant poets - Mike Garry and Luke Wight - was about a complete one-off who will never stop moving forwards.

Jeremy Miles