Josh Jones makes it a point of pride that his show contains nothing heavy like all those artsy Edinburgh Fringe offerings and is instead ‘just jokes’.

It’s not even really jokes for the most part (though there are some) just a gregarious gossipy download of this life, from his roots in an insalubrious Manchester suburb to a pleasant middle-class existence, thanks to dating an anaesthetist.

Life’s pretty good now – which he admits isn’t, generally, what audiences want to hear from comedians. Though Jones – who fits into a well-established tradition of camp comedians – is so good at making you feel like he’s your mate, you can’t begrudge him his happiness.

Without theme or structure, he bounces between talking about his ‘mental’ family – including a taciturn Northern dad – being dyslexic and his very brief stint on Dancing On Ice, when an ankle injury forced him to drop out.

The diversion into the slave trade is certainly unexpected, but Jones professes to be a history buff, especially in thrall to Elizabeth I. Though the pay-off to his convoluted premise of making the woke middle-classes confront the issues of repatriations probably isn’t worth the journey.

It may be close to stereotype, but he’s stronger when making ‘bumming jokes’, which perfectly suit his uber-camp style. And credit where it's due, he does find a new way to find it funny. 

Jones is good company and a genuine performer who speaks about his life with cheeky honesty. This brisk show, running under an hour, is a naughty treat, as light as foam – and just as insubstantial. 

He’s been a stand-up for a decade, and talks about honing his style in the likes of rough rugby clubs that have surely cemented his style: in control but ebullient and unthreatening. However now he is attracting his own audience, perhaps he could serve up more than superficiality. 

And for all his friendliness, one thing he doesn’t do is crowd work – it’s because he’s too self-absorbed, he says –  which comes as a relief to an audience led to expect involvement based on countless online clips. 

Support here – and on every night of the tour – comes from trans comic Jenny Hart, with plenty of gags about her bollocks, deliberately designed to provoke anyone who bristles at those last two words being put together. Self-identifying as ‘a piece of shit’, she belts out punky, bad taste songs, funny precisely because they are blunt and crude – even if their anarchic energy didn’t match the more genteel vibe of a midweek theatre-style crowd.

• Josh ​Jones tour dates