THE angry young man may now be approaching middle age but last night Ben Elton proved that he can still rant with the best of them.

It is 10 years since Elton has toured with a stand-up show, spending his time instead writing best-sellers and working on West End musicals.

But he was back where he belongs, alone on stage with a microphone for company.

He packed more original and genuinely funny material into one show than many so-called comedians will produce in their entire careers.

As he has got older, Elton's targets have changed to suit a man in his forties.

Topics ranged from tattoos, the cult of celebrity and even the growing size of Mars Bars.

The laughs varied from the cheap schoolboy type to some very clever intellectual arguments.

The speed of delivery remains machine-gun like. It was as though he took a deep breath at the beginning of the show and didn't pause for breath again until the end.

Watching Elton in full cry is an exhausting experience.

You just marvel at how he manages to remember so much material and use so many words to such great effect.

Not once did he stumble, never once was there an er'. It was an all-out verbal assault of the funniest kind.

I had feared that the man who gave us The Young Ones and Blackadder may have lost it after so long away. Thankfully I was wrong. Very wrong.

Welcome back, Ben.