Sarah Millican’s aptly titled Chatterbox tour offers more of what her fans love: effortless delivery and timing, confident audience involvement and plenty of self-deprecation. So why is Chatterbox so excruciatingly unfunny?

Millican’s performance is confidently assured: talking about biscuits and explicit anatomical details in the same breath. Moving beyond her divorce, she now discusses living alone, keeping relationships exciting, and how to relax after work. But her incorrigible cheekiness, aided by an innocent-sounding Geordie cadence, masks something more sinister: Millican exaggerates insipid, tasteless gender stereotypes under the guise of being an advocate of feminism.

The rapport with her audience is central. She invites open, honest - often regrettable – responses to her frank questions. She seems to have a loyal fan-base, some even bring her cakes, so she has eager participation freeing her to ask banal or insidious questions like “So who here likes to drink?” and “What’s the best thing about being a man or woman?” Predictably, responses to the latter were disgustingly retrograde.

This banter is reminiscent of a group of drunken friends chatting in a pub. They are enjoying themselves, but everyone else considers them loud and crass. Imagine a tasteless hen or stag party.

Within 90 mercifully quick minutes Millican’s beliefs about feminism flip-flopped; she announced her insouciance towards her weight then spoke of little else; and worst of all she claimed to be a “mismatch of the genders” then took pleasure in perpetuating lazy stereotypes while encouraging people to join in. Despite being in a room of stalwart supporters, she plugged her website.

Sarah Millican, you cannot have your cake and eat it too.

- Jonathan Wilkes