STEWART Lee teeters on the edge of Cheltenham Town Hall stage, screwing up his eyes in the bright lights, glaring at the audience.

“Who are you?” he asks, incredulously.

Who are we? Good question.

We, en masse, appear to be delightedly hoovering up as much faux animosity as Lee cares to fling our way. Faux, or is it real? Maybe it’s a bit of both.

He wishes quite so many of us hadn’t come along. If less of us came next time, he says, then he could move his show back into the smaller bar, where it had been in previous years. It was better when it was in there.

He toys with The Daily Mail’s jibe that left wing comics never dare to challenge Islam. He’s going to have a go at the Islams, he says. There are moments when it looks as though he might do it, but the routine meanders off around the houses and the Daily Mail don’t get their wish.

The second half of the show has urine as its central theme.

Being bullied once in the school toilets, he tells us, he was urinated on by the other boys. And though it wasn’t a pleasant experience, he felt that being the source of entertainment for the other lads resonated with him.

“At least it was show business,” he says.

He ends the show torn between two camps of ghosts – one group is supportive of what he’s doing, and the other half is made up of comedians who have committed suicide and want him to join them. ‘Join us, join us’ they say.

What an evening. Lee’s led us all on a merry old dance, outwitting us at every turn.

As I head off to find my car, I notice my brain glowing with satisfaction from for the work out he's given it.

Daisy Jewel