With only 20 people in Rob Rouse’s audience, the evening seemed condemned to be acutely awkward and uncomfortable. No one told Rouse.

His show, aptly called The Great Escape, was joyous, irreverent and painfully funny.

A video of his libidinous dog, Ronnie, had the crowd guffawing before Rouse was on stage and by the belly-achingly hilarious conclusion featuring a dead sheep, the atmosphere bordered on hysteria.

Immediately referencing the gig’s “intimacy”, Rouse abandoned his microphone, making his performance more personal and open.

With a kinetic personality and boundless energy and whimsy, he romped through the show with genuine heart – he would have given the same Herculean effort even if there were only one person.

A cornucopia of quick-fire delights included: likening teaching geography to drug addiction, speculating on a Polish sheepdog’s work ethic, questioning the baby name “Keith” and capturing the inanity of live news. His gift is for storytelling. Engaging and sharp anecdotes were delivered with colourful euphemisms and animated physicality.

Moving to the countryside, unromantic procreative sex, an elderly friend’s energetic disco dancing and bowel movements saw low-brow subjects approached with such raised-brow puckishness that the audience were helpless to the mounting frenzy.

Rouse’s conviviality, selfless desire to entertain and screwball gusto made subjects like potty training and his new hobby of collecting and eating road kill irresistibly uplifting.

It was indeed a great escape. That his truly wonderful show, performed with élan and elation, was seen by so few was an injustice. Your mission is clear: find and see Rob Rouse.