Safe territory, Marcus Brigstocke insisted in the opening exchanges of this show, was assured.

Gentle send-ups of regional accents, swipes at UKIP and pleas to save the NHS followed, as if to reinforce the promise.

A pleasant and forgettable hour seemed there for the taking until, in almost seamless style, the BBC Radio 4 regular launched into a series of surprising stories detailing, among other ordeals, his protracted testicular difficulties – ending in a doctor applying freezing gel to Brigstocke’s nether regions, before messing up the scan after “snookering” them – and his doomed previous career on an oil rig.

If Brigstocke’s everyman charm snares a mainstream audience, this show took off when he let loose his vulnerabilities.

He is aggressively unwilling, understandably, to become the media’s “eating disorder comedian”, but his material about being a 24-stone, 17-year-old chocolate-gorging obsessive in rehab – and his subsequent transformation into a podium dancer, after falling in love with himself while “dancing like everyone was watching” – is engrossing.

It could have gone deeper, but was also honest enough to afford him a spectacularly indulgent, feelgood ending which would have felt naff without the confessional 45 minutes which had preceded it. The more Brigstocke reveals, the better he is.