A long-time fixture on the open-mic scene – longer, perhaps, than most hopefuls would endure - Cousins is finally producing the sort of dependable set that might allow him to move up a rung on the comedy ladder.

The workaday persona is nothing special, with unconvincing attempts to adopt an upbeat and cheerful tone that seem forced and insincere, but it’s the writing that makes the set. Behind that benign smile, his jokes come at an industrious pace.

He takes a whimsical approach to observational comedy, cracking through the material fast enough so it remains inventive, rather than indulgent. It exposes the absurdities he sees in everyday targets from fishing to horse-racing without much dilly-dallying, building up a canon of reliable jokes at a rate that creates a substantial, original set.

Cousins is no great artist of comedy, nor is he a natural funny-bones entertainer – but he can more than pass muster as a jobbing circuit comic; a grafter who has created a substantial body of imaginative gags from a slightly off-kilter point of view. A step up the circuit – or at least a career in writing – surely lies in store.