Comedian Dom Joly has been away from our screens for a while but he has been busy writing his no-holds-barred autobiography.

Trigger Happy TV may be limited to repeats but the origins of the hit show are carefully explained in Joly's latest outing, Look At Me, Look At Me.

He strolled on stage carrying a bottle of wine and was joined by Paul Jackson for the Brighton Festival.

Together they discussed and dissected his book for 45 minutes before throwing proceedings open to the audience.

How much is fact and how much is fiction is a bit of an enigma.

For instance, Joly began with his childhood in Lebanon and his best school pals Uday Hussein and Osama Bin Laden.

He described how he never noticed Uday's psychotic tendencies and how Uday always got him out of trouble.

It was only when Uday stabbed a maths teacher that Joly's parents decided to remove him from the school.

Next came a stint in a jail in Tangiers for being caught with some of the finest local "produce" about his person, followed by time as a Goth agent for MI6.

At this point, Joly was supposedly forced to torch his own Porsche as part of the anti-poll tax demonstrations because he was unable to admit to his fellow protesters he was a spy.

A chance meeting with Peter Mandelson led to him standing on the Labour spin doctor's doorstep with three fish.

Next, Joly described a stint in the Priory after working as a Lloyds banker, being helped by Sir Cliff Richard, and a sexual assault by an unnamed weather forecaster which led to a cover-up and the eventual birth of Trigger Happy TV.

It is an autobiography to end all autobiographies but is total and utter fantasy.

Joly spent much of the time talking about himself and his book in a shameless plug.

The debate was less of a debate and more of a self-indulgent monotony, perfectly summed up by the book's title.

Without the spontaneity of the gags in Trigger Happy TV, Joly's talk lacked the humour so apparent on the small screen.

It was only when the debate was thrown open to the audience, with Joly answering off the cuff, that the show really got going and the real genius of Joly and the essence of Trigger Happy TV shone through.