I have a theory about Pierre Novellie. His reasoning behind calling this show Mighty Peter – Ringo Starr advised him to in a dream - is bizarre enough, but my suspicions go beyond that. My theory is that Pierre Novellie is actually a superhero. At 6’4” and, as he puts it, ‘stocky’, he could probably stop most criminals easily, no superpowers required (as we later find out, he’s prepared to do this only if they are London-based, ideally Dickensian). While stand-up comedy may not require X-ray vision or telekinesis, there is definitely something about Novellie’s talent that goes far beyond the ordinary.

Is it his relaxed delivery? It’s challenging for an ex-Footlight to return when most of his Cambridge fans upped and left at the same time he did. But as Novellie bounds onstage and immediately back off again to get his notes, and embraces the fact that to a lot of the audience he is a ‘random man’, it’s clear that nothing in the ADC could make him uncomfortable. The structure of his set is a perfect balance of tight, linear and fluid – and although he promises to avoid audience participation, an over-enthusiastic reaction to the story of a reindeer caught in an electric fence prompts just the right amount of off-the-cuff riffing to demonstrate Novellie’s unshakeable confidence. It’s fast-paced but always natural: his beaming smile makes it impossible to doubt this.

Maybe the superpower is his voice. Even the word ‘no!’ has a comedic quality that seems to grow on every repetition. Some of the most uncontrollable laughter in the show was provoked by indefinable syllables, ‘mmhm’s and ‘uh-oh’s. Maybe he has a superhuman memory which means he can rattle off the plot details of six blockbuster movies in one routine, and have the audience as enthralled by the narration of a yoghurt advert as by the complex clauses of Welsh medieval law. Pop culture references abound, often combined in ways that spark lost pathways between memories you barely knew still existed.

Joking aside, Novellie’s writing really does have a kind of X-ray vision quality to it, going beyond making a joke out of a concept, and instead mining each concept for hidden riches. On paper, a routine that starts ‘racists love me’ and ends with the death of Mandela oughtn’t to be funny, but Novellie finds gems in all the right places and, with a smile, could win over the most curmudgeonly of audiences. Never predictable, never lulled and even crusading for feminism at one point...it’s only a theory, but don’t take kryptonite to the next Pierre Novellie gig.