DURING his live show, Frank Skinner said he hoped to appeal to people at both ends of the social scale. Sadly, though, in Frank’s case the old adage rings true and you cannot be all things to all people.

Frank has not been live on tour for eight years – and it shows. Not least because, now he is coming to the end of his stint on the road, he’s beginning to look tired, despite the sharp suit. In the old days, you could have expected to see – in his own words – filth, lots of filth. Nowadays, he is better known for his gentle, humorous anecdotes on his Saturday morning radio show, not to mention his stint on Room 101. You can’t mix and match, not matter how much you want to turn back the clock, and it’s good to know where to place your audience.

He knows that nowadays he gets a mixed bag – it’s his opening gambit, and to be fair, he starts off well. However, when he moves on to gags about Jimmy Saville and DLT, you know you are moving onto dodgy territory (too dodgy for the couple sat behind me, as they had no qualms about getting up and leaving the auditorium).

There was no underlying theme – other than yes, he is wearing a suit. Some anecdotes were dragged out, often leading to a much weaker punchline than expected, and you get the feeling that it’s all wearing a bit thin.

Frank returns to his roots with the final gag, all about oral sex, but it really does come across that he is just ‘going through the motions’ and doesn’t have the impact that it did when he was a young man . Quite Frankly, he comes across as a little bit seedy.

The great thing about Frank is, however, that after so many years in show business he has the confidence to pull it off, even when some of the gags are falling a bit flat. He engages his audience with interactive elements (front row and first balconies only). I wanted laugh-out-loud funny, but it felt, at times, more like an after dinner speech which went on a bit too long. It was certainly an amusing evening, but sadly not the hilarious night out I had expected. Come on Frank, you can do better than this (and you will, when I switch my radio on next Saturday).