Half an hour before doors opened at The Olympia for the League Of Gentlemen, I sat over a pint with my companion for the night. A strange looking fellow approached me and asked if I would like to buy a rose for my date. Quite an appropriate warm up for the night ahead as the ‘date’ in question was my sister.

Put quite simply, while witnessing the League Of Gentlemen on stage the hairs on the back of my neck stood up… then ran. The incest, the paedophilia, the nose bleeds, it’s all there. Mostly I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry, so I did a bit of both. This was genius. This was… well it makes a hack’s job difficult because words just can’t describe.

I can’t remember when I last witnessed three men who were so bloody funny. On the evidence of this performance Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith, Mark Gatiss and Jeremy Dyson (who shares the writing but does not perform) are going to be around for a long time. Not that anyone who has ever watched their TV series needed any further convincing of this.

The characters they portray are at the best of times grotesque. But sitting in a packed Olympia I doubt if there was even one person who did not empathise with them.

A special mention must go to the unfortunate bloke who was picked from the crowd by the gay German exchange teacher Herr Lipp. The victim was humiliated on stage but still found it in his heart to plant a cheeky kiss on the disgusting German’s face. There’s that empathy again. He must have been a local.