Jimmy Carr @ King George’s Hall, Blackburn

9:00am Sunday 25th November 2007

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IT takes a brave comedian to stand up in front of 1,500 people and encourage them to heckle him.

But then Jimmy Carr is the master of interacting with an audience and on Saturday night he appeared to thrive on the challenge as East Lancashire's finest wits (or at least they thought they were) rained comments down upon him.

With a lesser comedian this could have been a recipe for disaster and the evening could have fallen apart.

But Carr handled everything with such aplomb - he was teacher who tamed an unruly classroom.

Woe betide anyone who stepped too far out of line.

A withering put-down left more than one heckler squirming in their seat.

Jimmy Carr is currently one of the most in-demand comedians and it's easy to see why.

In a show of over two hours he ran through more jokes than some old fashioned stand-ups would use in an entire career.

These ranged from the childishly simple to the downright offensive, but such is Carr's charm, he got away with it every time.

Behind the boyish appearance - he always looks like his mum got him ready - a razor-sharp intellect is at work.

For me, the most entertaining part of the set was when he took to the sofa on stage and, amid a cloud of dry ice, mused on the vagaries of life.

This was a hugely professional show - there were even spoof adverts on the big screen at the back of the stage.

From the moment the show was announced it was always going to be one of the highlights of the You Must Be Joking comedy festival - and so it proved.