Robert Newman refused to appear on BBC's Question Time because he believed a TV audience would not accept that Tony Blair would have been hanged at the Nuremberg trials.

On the strength of his reception tonight he may have convinced more people than he thought.

Waltzing up and down the stage with a series of comedy turns, Newman walked like Groucho Marx but he sure didn't talk like him.

Often, so many words tumbled out of his mouth even he couldn't keep up with them.

His arguments were nonetheless compelling. Why is the price of oil always quoted in US dollars? Give Newman half an hour and he'll explain.

He also sings songs. More historical than satirical, built around the thorny issue of geo-politics, this was never going to be as uproarious as one of Eddie Izzard's time-travelling sets.

So keen was Newman to present his case Apocalypso Now often felt less like comedy, more like a lecture with laughs.

However, as depressing as his tales were, his genius for illustration made them all the more palatable.

A pity then that the telling chuckles from the audience suggested that, rather than causing uproar, he was preaching to the converted.