This is the industrious Jimmy Carr’s fourth DVD, and you can’t avoid the sense that we’ve been here before, with his familiar mix of slick one-liners, supercilious derision, and a few more playful set pieces.

‘It’s the same as last year except for every single word,’ Carr himself admits, which is at least several steps ahead of Peter Kay’s trick of releasing the exact-same material in a different box. But the truth is you surely know by now whether you like Carr or not, and his 2008 release isn’t going to do anything to change your mind either way.

Of course, it’s not for sensitive types, with the likes of terminally ill children, paedophiles and incest providing fodder for his comedy. Carr often seems to be playing a game of dare with the audience, teasing them about just how far he can go and thereby attaining their tacit approval. The gags are largely pretty decent, even if he does sometimes, quite blatantly, employ a formulaic device such as rewriting children’s jokes to get the laughs.

Carr has a not entirely undeserved reputation for a cold delivery, but sometimes he lets that mask slip, as he engages in off-the-cuff banter with the audience. Perhaps all that work on TV quiz shows is paying off, because the lightness of this relaxed banter provides good contrast to the robotic mechanics of his one-liners… even if the chat is still hardly what you would call polite dinner-party conversation.

Probably the most notable thing about this release is the extra in which Carr’s audience putdowns are animated in a variety of styles. But, oddly this was not included on the DVDs sent out to reviewers, so we can’t pass comment

Release date: November 3, 2008

RRP: £19.99