With his upcoming arena tour, Roadrunner, Lee Evans is preparing to play to record-breaking numbers. A privileged few were able to see him test and tinker in a warm up show in York.

So, what will Roadrunner offer? More of the same: frenzied energy, conviviality, perfected delivery, a cornucopia of faces and voices, physicality, buckets of sweat and pedestrian topics. Evans’ comedy is slap bang middle-of-the-road. With a wad of notes, he romped through the lengthy set in his extraordinary way, but the material was rather ordinary.

The atmosphere was uproarious, bordering on hysterical, but every time he dropped a page of notes or paused to scrutinise the audience’s reaction it felt like an engineered trigger for a bout of clapping.

Two and a half hours of unconnected anecdotes about his nagging wife, weddings, restaurant etiquette, online shopping, music volume in shops, babies, shopping at IKEA, airports and an attack on bankers, and the material’s banality was taking its toll. Every second was improved by his physicality, but too much relied on his gurning charm.

Evans is a munificent everyman on stage. Some observations – comparing his wife applying make-up with the Phantom Of The Opera – were wonderfully captured and Roadrunner will undoubtedly be a huge success (even the warm up received a standing ovation). But the comedy is short term: instantly entertaining, instantly forgettable. Maybe that is why he always has a memorable finale, like his energetic mime of “Bohemian Rhapsody”.

It is like a heavy night’s drinking. You cannot remember what happened, but you know you enjoyed yourself.