Two years ago, Arthur Smith was hospitalised with an acute attack of pancreatitis.

After an unpleasant course of intensive care and a pleasant course of morphine, he was told one more drink could kill him.

"Asking me to give up drinking was like asking Stevens to stop shakin'," he deadpanned.

But the newly-sober stand-up has turned his trauma into a 60-minute show which features a fair amount of dead-pan and a chaser of accomplished slapstick, courtesy of his sidekick Virgil.

With a customary sense of proportion, Radio 4 favourite Smith has based his genial exploration of mid-life crisis and sobriety on Dante's Inferno.

Stepping on stage in scarlet Renaissance robes, quickly whipped off to reveal an NHS gown, he led the audience on a tour of the nine circles.

The subject gave Smith room to take an askance look at the essential questions of life, death and Mick Hucknall, throwing in delicious one-liners all delivered in that estuarine voice.

Measured and gently divine comedy.

Review by Simon Freeman, features@theargus.co.uk