Review: Dylan Moran, Dr Cosmos, Grand Opera House, York, November 4

IRISH wit Dylan Moran has swapped a glass of red for a red tea pot by his side on stage, but the absence of the grape hasn''t changed his disposition, he says.

He is still the philosophical master of the eloquent gripe, and although he brings out his other stage staple for the start of the second half – a bar of chocolate – he promptly places the broken-chunk back on the tinfoil, thinking better of it.

The Navan-born comic turned 47 the day before his sold-out night at the Grand Opera House, but the state of all around him meant he was not in party hats and poppers mood, more the party popper, more like. And thank goodness for that because Moran putting the world, both political and domestic, to the sword is one of live comedy's greatest pleasures.

The image of Theresa May's face trying to escape from the rest of her body whenever she enters a room to make a speech will live long in the memory, while the tedium of a supper party where the two men just sit there, with nothing in common and even less to say, like "a fridge in the river" is typical of his ability to mine poetry from the mundane.

When he discusses the familiar, family life for example, he does so with insights beyond the vocabulary of so many plain comics in T-shirts and jeans, and when he holds forth, albeit briefly, on Brexit, he does so with a rapier as sharp as Oscar Willde's. Oh, for such clarity of thinking en masse before that fateful day in 2016.

We have heard comedians comparing cats and dogs' behaviour more than once, but none has ever come up with such a joyous nailing of the feline creature's dismissive manner. All cats have the voice of Alan Rickman, he suggests, promptly impersonating Rickman in his Truly, Madly, Deeply persona. Inspired.

Charles Hutchinson