WHEN you bill your show as “If You Prefer a Milder Comedian, Please Ask For One” it pays to be at least a bit shocking.

In last night’s performance, there were a few uses of the C-word, a sketch about the Queen’s privates (I don’t mean her army) but apart from those Stewart Lee was about as startling as an accountant reading the Financial Times.

Oh, there was the bit when he said he wished Richard Hammond had died when he crashed his jet-powered car and that Jeremy Clarkson’s daughters should all be blinded.

But that was because he was belabouring a point about Top Gear being unforgivingly unpolitically correct, and anyway those jokes had already been reported in the papers.

Well, he had a point.

Some of what Clarkson says in between jibing celebrities about their bad driving and undertaking madcap adventures is grossly offensive, but that doesn’t necessarily make it good material for stand-up. Actually, it sort of does, but not when you drag it out for so long that the joke becomes so familiar it’s no longer funny.

Despite there not being enough material for a 70-minute set, there were some good sketches – the faux pas of inviting a real pirate to a date at a pirate adventure castle activity centre; being accused of trying to steal two-ninths of a cup of coffee from Cafe Nero.

Lee was funniest in the parts of the show specific to Liverpool, commenting on the so-called art works covering the boarded-up houses on Edge Lane and relating a visit to comedian Jimmy Tarbuck’s home.

Maybe he’s too likeable to be shocking, or maybe, as he comments at one point, there are simply no taboos left in comedy.

Perhaps it’s because his most extreme material has had the sting taken out of it by over-exposure in the media.

But, ultimately, you can ask for a milder comedian – but you might struggle to find one.

LAURA DAVIS