girls on stage to demonstrate how to put a condom on a banana.

The usual result was some embarrassed girls and much mocking laughter from audience and performers. Then one night a particularly attractive girl caressed the banana so lasciviously, and to such hearty applause, that it was the performers who didn't know where to put themselves.

Today it's the stand-up clubs where the truly offensive moments in comedy take place. They're tough, dangerous places, where performers often have to fight for their comedic lives. I once saw a stand-up begin his act with the words "Hello, I'm a schizophrenic", only to receive the immediate reply from the back: "Then you can both fuck off". I never saw him again.

To protect themselves, the performers often retaliate first. Last week I watched a girl comic take the stage, immediately pull her trousers to half mast, bend over, and invite an imaginary partner to choose. No one could be embarrassed after that.

The late Malcolm Hardee, allegedly the

owner of the largest testicles in London, would use them, plus luminous paint and a pair of spectacles, to produce an alarmingly obscene impression of Charles de Gaulle.

Set against these performers, one could claim, Johnny Vegas is relatively bland. There are those who will excuse him entirely. They will say that in over-stepping the mark on stage, Vegas and those like him serve a purpose. After all, you only know where the mark is when you over-step it. And in a world of rapidly changing tastes, the mark keeps moving.

Mealy-mouthed clap-trap? Possibly. And nothing can truly excuse his activities at the Bloomsbury, which were, if we believe the Guardian report, those of a seedy, drunken and sexually voracious bully.

Will he get away with it? Probably. Meanwhile, my advice to the offended is simple. If you are disgusted by Vegas and his ilk, don’t go. And if you do go, never ever ever sit in the front row.