Tim Hughes laughs along to Miles Jupp’s elegant comedic observations

Miles Jupp has had more diverse incarnations than one would reasonably expect from his relatively modest years. He was the cuddly, kilt-wearing inventor Archie in Balamory, the useless press officer Duggan in The Thick of It, the ambitious lay reader Nigel in Rev, the fastidious food writer Damien Trench in the superb Radio 4 comedy In And Out Of The Kitchen and is the host of The News Quiz.

He has also played Alan Bennett at the National, a major in the George Clooney-directed The Monuments Men and won an episode of Celebrity Mastermind – of which more later. But tonight he is simply being Miles: an incredibly well-spoken, charmingly-mannered but, nonetheless, quite cross father-of-five.

Fans of The News Quiz will be familiar with his wry observations delivered calmly in a cut-glass accent – and that is very much the model for his stand-up show, Songs of Freedom.

There is nothing here to scare the horses. There is no angry raging against the machine – just the elegantly enunciated minor frustrations of a chap who, by anyone’s definition is comfortably privileged.

So we hear about his annoyance at being required to drink cocktails from jam jars, the dispiriting nature of shopping in WH Smiths (“do you have a book that hasn’t been recommended by Richard and Judy?”), the concept of meat-free toad in the hole (“surely that’s just hole”), the price of Prince Charles’s Duchy Originals biscuits (“perhaps he simply believes that’s what a packet of biscuits actually costs.... they belong to us anyway), and his shame at being mistaken for a train spotter.

These are first world problems (“of course they are, I live in the first world,” he exclaims.

He knows he is inoffensive, of course, telling us about a show in Spalding (where the audience consisted, he tells us, of far too many people wearing silk scarves and casual beige trousers, to be considered edgy), where he is forced to follow his audience out of the venue, and overhears a man describing him as nice but with unexpected content. “What would they rather?” he asks “incredibly offensive but predictable?”

It’s a fair point though , and that’s his charm, along with his refusal to take his achievements seriously – such as his victory on Celebrity Mastermind, with its increasingly loose definition of ‘celebrity’ (“half the people in this room have probably being asked,” he quips).

“So who’s the celebrity?” a removal man asked him on finding the trophy as he moved home? Miles was too embarrassed to answer, instead offering him the slab of acrylic as a gift. The man declined. Oh the indignity!

Tim Hughes 4/5