It took 20 minutes of faltering Eddie Izzardesque musings before Mark Steel hit his stride.

The old-school satirist, one of the Eighties new wave of angry alternative comedians, carved out his career in the days when all you had to do was say "Thatcher" and the crowd would go into meltdown.

The sense of anticipation was palpable as, for the first third of his hilarious show, he trotted through familiar territory: Jurassic Park dubbed into French, the latent Imperialism of the English race and Countdown in Welsh ("I'll have a consonant please, and another consonant. And eight more consonants").

Then he mentioned Iraq - and the sell-out audience erupted.

"You don't even have to write the jokes," he said, running through a list of the bizarre and incredible outpourings from the new generation of hawkish politicians.

Jack Straw came under particular fire: "All he had to do was be better than Michael Howard, you'd think that would be an easy gig - but no!"

For the rest of the show, Steel preached to his converted audience at the inherent madness of our times.

Intelligent, passionate and, oh yes, very funny.