From football hooliganism to suicide bombers, no subject was too taboo for Omid Djalili's acerbic tongue.

Belly dancing onto the stage, the British-Iranian comic delivered a high-octane show that played with ideas of race and identity.

Interspersing his punchlines with his trademark madcap songs and impressions, he offered a staggering array of characters, from a Nigerian traffic warden to Godzilla.

Laughing in the face of political correctness and, indeed, taste, he got his biggest laughs for gags about terrorism in the Middle East, proving his assertion that joking about the world's evils both releases tension and reduces people's fear.

Omid's larger-than-life stage presence was hilarious - think Al Murray meets Carlton from Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air - but at times his hyperactive, clownish persona seemed bigger than his material.

Some of his jokes were met with sighs rather than belly laughs, because they relied on silly puns or too-predictable racial stereotypes.

A couple of times, Omid managed to fluff the punchlines by laughing at himself before he reached them.

Mentioning his BBC series several times during the show, and ending it with flashy pyrotechnics, it seemed, at times, the award-winning comedian was more concerned with his ego and reputation than his comedy material.