It would have been all-too easy for Father Ted star Ardal O'Hanlon to have built his stand-up career around his much-loved TV character Father Dougal Maguire.

He would need only to have stumbled on stage wearing a lost gaze and a bemused smile and we'd all have been in stitches.

Rather bravely, O'Hanlon chose to bury the sacred memory of the daft priest and adopt a different comic persona altogether.

This is respect worthy considering the majority of the audience would have been Father Ted fans hoping for a glimpse of Dougal.

When O'Hanlon first shuffled on stage, there was a twinkle of Dougal in his eyes but the suit was too crisp and the hair too fashionably scruffy.

From that point on, the cheeky innocence of Dougal died and O'Hanlon's new winge-style of comedy took over - and I switched off.

I like comedy to push boundaries, challenge preconceptions, inform and entertain, O'Hanlon's humour fulfilled few of these criteria.

He based his gags around safe and predictable subject matter which occasionally made me giggle but never roar with laughter.

With so many great comics like Sean Lock, Stu Who and Brendan Burns on the scene, I found it hard to get excited by O'Hanlon's unremarkable brand of humour.

Hove Centre, Hove Town Hall, Church Road, Hove, Friday