‘I first came here in 1985, when I did Two Gentlemen of Verona”, announced Julian Clary, roller-blading onstage in a sparkly orange suit. The ‘Lord of the Mince’ had arrived (the title of his one-man show) and an evening of benign campery got under way. Actually the phrase ‘anal sex’ arrived within two minutes. During an act for which the tickets stated the audience had to be over 16, campery often gave way to harder material.

Clary talked about achieving his half-century: “Being 50 has rather crept up on me, like a Catholic priest in a public lavatory”. And he was happy to be rude back at himself, with a sideswipe: “Somebody said to me, ‘We used to think you were rubbish, but now we’ve got Dale Winton!’” Christopher Biggins and Paul O’Grady were often mentioned en passant.

Intriguingly, having established that there were quite a number of heterosexuals in the audience, he said that “they were all welcome” and that “If it were an all gay and lesbian audience, I would do an entirely different show”.

The mind boggled, but he’s a shrewd enough operator to know that being a “brand” (as he told me last week), he shouldn’t ruin too many expectations.

There was, for example, a sizeable crowd who laughed at everything Clary said about Strictly Come Dancing (having been in the final a few years ago); it went over my head, but showed that he’s well aware of the various constituencies he’s performing for.

Occasionally nervous, he was at his best when involving members of the audience – indeed, whenever he seemed to go off script, he sparkled. The best laughs he got came when he read out, quite straight, and with splendid timing, several . . . shall we say lesser stories that appeared in this newspaper last week.

The words ‘National Treasure’ had come to mind; but he topped that early on by declaring himself a ‘National Trinket’.

How sweet.