It’s been interesting to watch the evolution of Rhod Gilbert’s comedy over the two decades he’s been in the business, his exaggerated rants about first-world-problems and the minutiae of life replaced by exaggerated rants about real experiences and life-changing personal issues.

The development has largely been forced upon him by a variety of heartache and trauma, but he’s certainly made the most it (“ker-ching” he mocks when he realises he can make money from misery). His last show The Book Of John covered, in no particular order, infertility treatment, mini strokes, ADD diagnosis and his mother’s death. Oh, and an idiot called John who drove him between appointments (Gilbert was unable to get behind the wheel on medical grounds) and whose ludicrous comments provided light in the darkest moments. It was utterly brilliant.

A quick contextual preçis of the above - partly as a reminder that his life was already “pretty sh*t” - is the starting point for his latest show, which mines more personal trauma for comedy, as Gilbert candidly outlines his diagnosis, treatment and recovery from head and neck cancer while simultaneously determined to have a laugh at the disease’s expense.

He’s quick to acknowledge the sensitive nature of the topic, the likelihood that cancer has personally impacted audience members and that there’s nothing funny about it… before proceeding to turn it into two hours of the most uproarious comedy and loudest laughs I’ve ever witnessed at a stand-up gig.

Tragi-comedy shows are nothing new of course but I’ll wager there’s never been a show quite like this one, which somehow combined elements of self-help, sharing (audience members were invited to shout out about their own cancer experiences) and emotional candour with genuinely side-splitting hilarity.

The latter largely came from coarse and totally inappropriate musings on the physical and mental effects of cancer, from graphic explanations of dealing with constipation to imagining his wife making out with another man on the sofa he’d just ordered but might never see. Pulling laughs from such dark places - not least when a Google search suggests he has six weeks to live - is no mean feat, but Gilbert has always had a gallows humour and he’s also aided and abetted by the returning John, whose initial reaction is “when did you Google it?”

Lengthy exasperated riffs on Michael Douglas’ tonsil cancer (which the actor blamed on oral sex) and the VIP treatment (“Waitrose-level chemotherapy”) Gilbert expected to receive at Cardiff’s Velindre Cancer Centre, where he’s been a patron for ten years, were glorious reminders of the duvet, torch and mince pie rants that made his name, but with an authenticity that took them to new heights.

That element, as well as a lump-in-the-throat (no pun intended) video montage at the end, made this a comedy show with heart and soul as well as belly-laughing humour, and is one I can’t recommend highly enough.

6 stars

Reviewed by Steve Adams at Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry, on Friday 18 October. Rhod Gilbert returns to the Midlands to play Birmingham's Symphony Hall on Friday 15 & Saturday 16 November.