Ben Elton's hair is going grey. In his first live performance in Brighton for more than a decade, the 46-year-old comic limped on stage dosed up on Nurofen and wearing heat packs to numb a painful back.

Thankfully the passing years had failed to dull his gift for impassioned, high-velocity rants. And the sparkly suit was in full effect.

But would the Motormouth have anything fresh to say in 2005?

In a word, not much. The differences between the sexes, body insecurities, the awfulness of modern television, the deceit of marketing - it was a masterclass in socially-engaged observational humour of the kind pioneered by Elton in the early-Eighties.

Then it was regarded as cutting-edge and alternative - on Friday it sounded ordinary.

His targets were creationists, conspiracy theorists, Princess Diana (in a routine which would have been brave had it been performed eight years ago), Bob Geldof and Sharon Osbourne.

There were few political jokes.

An exception was Elton's recollection of Carol Thatcher's recent appearance in I'm A Celebrity, when she was caught weeing inside the camp.

"She did to the jungle floor what her mum did to the country for ten years," he barked, following up with his catchphrase: "A little bit of politics".

Elton produced some good lines ("The scrotum is not a surface that lends itself to waxing") but his repeated claims that every joke had "an important socio-political point" was asking a little much.

Desperately seeking a narrative to stitch his observations together into something coherent, he grabbed Newton's third law, under which each action is accompanied by an equal and opposite reaction. It culminated in the hurried conclusion that cars were getting bigger as the polar ice caps were shrinking.

A more interesting thread may have been provided by Elton's own progress. It's the story of an angry young man who first appeared at the Dome 20 years ago and two decades later, after a long journey via television sitcoms and West End musicals, is still making people laugh at life's absurdities.

"I'll save my incontinence routine for 2040," Elton said. It will be worth waiting for.