I first discovered Romesh Ranganathan by accident, channel surfing late one night and stumbling across the sublime Asian Provocateur.

Sweating his way across his parents' homeland of Sri Lanka, mainly to keep his mum happy, his bemused expression and gentle exasperation endeared him to an army of new fans.

It was a shock, then, to discover his stand-up show at Oxford Playhouse was somewhat edgier. Naive of me I know but even so, I was shaken. It was like suddenly finding out Olivia Coleman was a shoplifter or maybe that Rolf Harris was a... well, you get my drift.

Starting out with a protracted and slightly tedious bit of banter with a poor bloke who happened to look like him in the audience, Romesh eventually got into his stride with his trademark dry-as-a-bone, self-depreciating brand of humour.

Routines about his children – he doesn’t like the middle one apparently – and his mum’s efforts to de-coconut him (brown on the outside, white on the inside) kept us happy but I particularly enjoyed his android versus iPhone rant – android users aren’t “off the grid”, it’s not a small collective “run by brothers Sam and Sung,” and “it’s just a different set of children making the phones.” And yes, I’ve got an iPhone.

Along with the laughs, however, came a massive dose of audience shaming – especially ferocious when a girl’s mobile phone dinged. Maybe my naivety is on show again, but was he really that angry or is it just the done-thing these days? As you’d expect, Frankie Boyle took it to extremes during his show at the New Theatre recently, leaving most of us squirming with embarrassment. But lovely Romesh… really?

A uniquely Oxford moment arrived when a lad piped up that he’d been one of Romesh’s pupils during his former life as a maths teacher. “Really?” said a slightly sheepish Romesh. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m at university,” he replied. “Wow, Oxford?” asked Romesh. “Brookes” came the reply. “Oh” sighed the audience in unison.

I still prefer Romesh on his bumbling odessey across Sri Lanka but as stand-ups go he’s definitely worth seeing. Just make sure you don’t upset him…