Chris Tavner is an amiable bloke; chatty and animated and most likely to make for engaging company down the pub.

Unfortunately, there ought to be more to comedy than being a nice guy – and that’s where this Manchester-based act is left wanting. His material never veers from the generic, with such broad, bland observations as to be devoid of any interest.

Jokes about licking the back of the Queen’s head, mistaking it for a stamp, surely date back to the Fifties; while other routines about more modern topics already sound tired: celebrity voices on SatNav devices, for instance. When a punchline fails, he even taps the microphone and asks, with no apparent sense of irony: ‘Is this thing on?’

Gags about Harold Shipman, or Englishmen speaking loudly when abroad, or the complexities of a town’s one-way system – it all adds to the sense that you’ve heard it all before. He’s doing exactly the same spiel as countless other comics past and present, which means there’s absolutely nothing that will make him stick in the mind. Shame, cos he seems so personable.