Broadcaster and raconteur Gyles Brandreth is a man on a mission - to inspire this texting generation about the power of language.

His show, Word Power!, encourages us all to ‘get it [language], use it and conquer the world’.

The former MP waxes lyrical about the richness of the English language (there are 500,000 words in the Oxford English Dictionary compared to less than 100,000 in the French) in this two-hour celebration of the art of communication.

He shares facts about English’s most used and 'favourite sounding' words with relish and takes a well-deserved jibe at George W Bush 'isms'.

The lessons, and most of the jokes, are very worthy, but unfortunately he litters his talk a little too heavily with celebrity and royal name drops from Margaret Thatcher to Sir Kingsley Amis, the Queen and Prince Phillip.

The Just A Minute veteran clearly delighted most of his audience with his anecdotes, and his ability to quote Barrett-Browning, Shakespeare and Samuel Johnson was impressive.

Yet the second half turned into a bit of a ramble. Towards the end, in a lesson on posture, Brandreth managed to get the Sunday afternoon audience on their feet, marching and chanting 'nipples leading', which takes some pluck.

There were some nice ad libs when the Oxford graduate's natural wit shone through, and his call for us to keep learning new words is admirable.

But overall, you left the theatre feeling this was a one-man posh panto that had run out of steam.