Greg Davies, The Back of My Mum’s Head, Ipswich Regent, November 13

They love stand-up in Ipswich.

The Regent is a surprisingly intimate venue for one comedian and 1,500 people.

Greg Davies, who appears on comedy panel shows and plays a teacher in The Inbetweeners and in his new comedy Man Down, is a big guy who gets big laughs.

I’m confident he won’t mind me mentioning his size. He did, backing up someone’s description of him as looking like bin bag full of coleslaw, by hoicking up his slightly-too-short black T-shirt and showing us an impressive expanse of mobile white tummy.

Laughing was the polite thing to do and Ipswich has exemplary manners.

Davies canvassed the audience to get an idea of the prevailing age and turned on the under 25s for “coming in here with your nice skin and your... hope.”

He conveys the self-deprecating despair of a world-weary 45-year-old with the engaging mischievousness of a schoolboy.

He’s not one of the young blades of comedy, he worked as a real teacher before giving it all up for fame, fortune and laughter. But he hasn’t lost the educational outlook. There was a lesson plan – he produced a list of learning objectives.

What did we learn? Greg took us through his top five noises, one of which was the sound of a nasty bout of wind that beset him in a Spanish village during a religious festival.

He told us some funny stories and even sang a song..

Frank and affectionate, Greg Davies is at his at his best relating stories about his mum, his family and his mates. He is not in-your-face; he doesn’t make you squirm but neither is he wholly on the wall. Probably more off than on, in fact.

As his mum is fond of saying: “It’s not normal, love”.

LYNNE MORTIMER