Bespectacled and slightly dishevelled, Byrne is a touring stand-up veteran – although he is probably best known for appearances on TV’s Live At The Apollo, and various comedy shows, as well as habitually just failing to get to the mic first during the free-for-all ‘Unlikely things to hear…..’ segment on most of his 60 episodes of Mock The Week.

The Dublin-born hillwalking atheist has a rich seam of material from a busy professional and private life to call up for his live shows – be it marriage, bringing up children, Essex life under the Stansted flight path, useless fellow fathers, why he turned down Strictly (not repeatable here), the joy of small triumphs or comic bewilderment at overly complicated modern superhero movies.

Here, already deep into his exhausting 68-date his ‘If I’m Honest…’ tour which runs into July, he is pontificating and agonising in his sometimes relaxed, occasionally agitated and always self-deprecating style about whether there are any of his personality traits it would be worthwhile for his two sons to inherit.

As ever with Byrne, it is all beautifully observed – the surreal and extraordinary contents of his head spilling delightfully from his mouth to tickle the audience’s collective funny bone. He is well loved, and it shows in the warm response from the less than packed Pavilion.

The constantly hair flicking 47-year-old – a long-time voice of the Carphone Warehouse ads – came to fatherhood relatively late; his wife and boys of nine and seven are obviously the apples of his eye as well as providing excellent ammunition for his comedy gun, especially through some excellent lines spoken with the innocence of youth.

What you don’t get with Byrne is the feeling – sadly prevalent among many celebrities – that they believe they are the first to marry or have children and that the rest of us need to hear their oh-so important pronouncements (as well as buy the book). Byrne instead uses these personal milestones as collateral for his act, and jolly amusing it is too.

He is also constantly irritated by life in general, by relationships, by the ageing process (keeping fit at 47 was likened to hanging paintings in a burning building), by the difficulties he and wife Claire had in raising gender-neutral children and by his middle class existence (exampled by the revelation that he was pleased he cut his hand on a knife he had carefully sharpened himself with a new gadget).

However, getting to the point of the show, his realisation that he could already see his own traits and foibles in his sons’ behaviour and speech entertainingly filled him with a certain amount of anxiety.

He saved an excellent line to the end – with a routine that we, the audience, were effectively sponsoring his sons and that him turning up on tour every couple of years or so, was effectively him reporting on their progress.

It’s worth it.