After bringing (temporary) peace to the Middle East with his 1996 show The Arab And The Jew, saving the Komedia is small fry to the British-born Iranian comic.

Djalili donated his services for two nights, to ease the financial difficulties of the popular Brighton venue.

Having grown up in Britain with Iranian parents, he refers to traits of both British and Iranian culture from an insider’s perspective.

However, he still has a tendency to concentrate too much on existing Iranian stereotypes of suicide bombers and other extremists.

Having seen and enjoyed his shows before, I wish he would source more of his stories and jokes from the day-to-day life and culture of Iranians.

His show is based on the concept, “Is it racist, or playing with race?” – but this is mainly an excuse to tell a lot of race- based jokes, and show off his proficiency with accents.

Some accents are better than others. His Nigerian traffic warden makes a welcome return, but the Somalian pirate is Nigerian gone wrong, with added Captain Pugwash.

There were a few new jokes about the credit crunch, but these benefit gigs are, understandably, more a “best of” compilation of his routines – which inevitably meant the crowd wouldn’t let him go without something he’s become justifiably famous for.

Laughing, he protested we’d only come to see a fat bald man dance, but relented and finally showed off his unique “belly dancing” style to rapturous applause.