Grizzled comedian Rich Hall looks deliciously out of place as he takes to the stage at the Oxford Playhouse.

This fancy theatre in this refined city is everything that the scowling Montana cowboy is not. Or, at least, that’s the impression he tries to convey. The truth, however, is somewhat different.

For all his red-neck posturing, native Virginia drawl and hick observations, Hall is as sharp as a cowpoke’s spur – a comic genius who excels at fashioning a routine out of the raw materials in front of him.

The king of improvisation, his show sees him exchanging banter with the crowd and building it into his routine.

Rich – who actually lives in London when not in his Montana cabin – straddles the Atlantic divide, giving him a unique perspective on us and them. And he hones in on those comic differences with rapier wit.

No stranger to Oxford, he first remarks on the Playhouse’s fancy new colourful seats, before turning his sights on our sister paper, the Oxford Mail.

“What a bastion of news!” he gasps, before recounting his journey through its obituaries observing everyone in Oxford dies either suddenly or peacefully.

While the first half of the show is a dig at Trump’s America from a British perspective, the second half of his ‘hoedown’ sees him celebrating his homeland in “real” country music – taking the subjects for each song – name, occupation and even car – from those foolish enough to have sat in the front rows.

It is all hilarious – songs about star-crossed lovers from Oxford and Bicester, tunes about a milk tester from Otmoor and a ballad about romance in a Vauxhall Cavalier. He ends with an excoriating parody of Bob Dylan.

Once again, good ol’ boy Rich shows he is quicker and wiser than he seems.

TIM HUGHES 5/5