WHICH Milton gives you the most joy right now? Milton Keynes? Maybe Milton the poet or probably not Milton Friedman, the American economist?

The number one Milton surely has to be the shock-haired Milton Jones, the jovial, chuckling English comedian with the loud charity-shop shirts and quiet manner, whose gag-to-laugh conversion rate is of Jonny Wilkinson proportions.

Jones last toured York in 2011, playing the Grand Opera House on three Lion Whisperer dates dotted through that year.

He has since switched to the bigger-capacity Barbican – now becoming a familiar path for comedians of his TV and radio status – and while that sacrificed theatre intimacy at Friday’s show and made bantering with the audience a slower process, Jones nevertheless was utterly comfortable in his new surroundings.

Indeed it is hard to think of a more relaxed comedy act, not least by comparison with the over-excited exertions of his shouting support act Nish Kumar.

Kumar had been preceded by Milton’s grandfather (Jones himself in cap and coat), gliding on stage on his scooter to deliver his sage, sometimes gleefully curmudgeonly thoughts and sepia nostalgia.

He left all too soon, making way for Nish’s platitudes, but comedy paradise was regained with Milton’s puns, one-liners, wizard wordplay, surrealist imagery and picture puzzles, to the delight of adults and children alike.

How rare too for a comedian to be cleaner mouthed than a Listerene glug, but his tongue is not without a sting, whether pricking the bubble of political baloney, winding up the Scots over devolution, gently mocking York’s nightlife or pointing out that while a Yorkshireman may call a spade a spade, so does everyone else.

Milton Jones is the essence of brevity being the soul of wit. Try to keep up with Jones’s word games when he returns to York Barbican on October 13. Milton also plays Harrogate Royal Hall on March 21.