AN AIR of surprise and delight still suffuses this one-time pharmaceuticals marketing man.

At the age of 42, John Bishop finds himself selling out theatres, appearing on television and having a right old ball.

In truth, balls pop up a lot. Much of the routine concerns matters of the blokey kind, yet while Bishop is a very male comedian, women seem to enjoy his act as much as the men.

His comedy is inclusive and has a wide appeal, and he plays the Liverpudlian buffoon to pleasing effect, while actually being an awful lot smarter than he pretends; he flirts with sentimentality, yet rarely goes into the goo.

The swiftness of his comic creativity was on display with some smart on-the-spot riffing inspired by the boxes to either side of the stage, or Jacuzzis, as he called them. He ascended the ladder of lights to one to discover it contained a gorgeous gaggle of young women; from the other side, the banter ran with a professor of statistics (“What are the odds on that, eh, Martin?”).

Male friendship, his appearance in the teen TV drama Skins, his teenage children, and the time he bribed his boys to pretend it was they, and not he, who had been looking at porn on the computer – all this featured, plus football too, with footage of Bishop playing a charity match with Liverpool.

A funny and pleasing performance from a most likeable comedian.

John Bishop returns to the Grand Opera House on May 3.