The level of chauvinism facing female comedians was thrown into sharp focus last night, thanks to Channel 4's First Dates.

Stand-up Kelly Convey was set up on a date with a man called Russell – who insisted female comedians were usually ‘quite fat’ and that men were funnier than women.

A premise he went on to disprove with a sequence of insults which he claimed were jokes.

‘For a comedian you look hot,’ he told her. ‘Female stand-up comedians. They're not usually that attractive. They're quite fat.’

He then explained that ‘men are usually funnier,’ than women to the horrified silence of his date.

Russell subsequently asked Kelly what her comedy style is like, but before she got a chance to answer he stomped in with his observation that ‘right now, it's pretty shit.’

When she told him she gigged every night of the week, he 'joked': ’You’re doing something wrong then.’

And then he had the audacity to suggest: ‘I should be the comedian.’

Watch - and cringe – here: