Tony Slattery is still a miraculously gifted comedian

Some of the marketing efforts by amateur impresarios up in Edinburgh are extraordinary. I was handed a leaflet for a poetry show called Don’t Bother. I didn’t. Tony Slattery appears in Slattery Will Get You Nowhere (a good pun that advertises the content), in which the ageing comic takes the audience back to the 1990s. In those days he was a handsome, clever, charismatic wag who suffered from an excess of self-regard. Now he’s a grizzled, ramshackle presence, jowly and ill-shaven, like a forgetful pensioner on his way to the day centre.

He starts his show with a lot of banter about wine but he doesn’t drink on stage. Alongside him sits a friendly interviewer who guides him through the rougher bridleways of his anecdotes. His memory is a little shaky but his comic instincts and his unquenchable love of mischief haven’t deserted him. He hints at an episode of sexual abuse at school but refuses to go into details ‘because it’s not funny, and I shouldn’t say this either because it really isn’t funny, except that it is: child abuse can come back to bite you on the arse.’