I would never normally be so unprofessional to review a gig if I left before the end. But as Steve Hughes pulled up his stool to tell us he’s not a conspiracy theorist, ‘it’s called knowledge, people’, I found I had someplace else to be. And since the clock had edged past midnight by this point, decreasing public transport options of how to get there.

Already the Australian outsider had spent quite a hefty portion of last night’s gig on an anti-woke, men’s rights agenda mixed with new-agey babble. Part ‘do your own research, sheeple’, part ‘I believe in astrology’. ‘Proper’ astrology mind, not the bullshit you read the evil corporate mainstream media. Mystic Meg is a tool of the capitalist oppressor. He argues that if he’s told men can menstruate, why can’t he believe in star signs?

Even those in the audience who greeted him with preternatural enthusiasm at the start of the gig became more muted as Hughes became more earnest. Or maybe it was just fatigue setting in, two-and-half hours after the start time.

Yet it’s possible to laugh at jokes you disagree with – at least it should be, if we can at least understand those beyond our tribal silos – and Hughes has plenty of great gags. He’s a hugely charismatic performer with an impressive skillset and an impish streak – at least before he got too serious. The comedy works best when there’s ambiguity about whether he means what he says, or is merely being provocative for the reaction.

For he can sometimes see the ridiculousness of his own situation, saying he wouldn’t take drugs from big pharma but is happy to take them from some bloke called Terry; or making the contentious point that women should be grateful for men for building everything while admitting he could do none of those alpha-male jobs.

Other times, the 54-year-old glosses over the contradictions: urging his audience not to be brainwashed by mainstream media – while ripping his opinions on trans rights or the inconsequential obsession about whether James Bond could be played by a woman right from the pages of the dominant conservative press.  

He’s playing to the choir, largely, as his excellent ‘so what if you’re offended? Nothing happens’ routine has proved an enduring rallying cry for those who oppose cancel culture. That was on TV more than a decade ago. Since then, Hughes has spent many dark nights of the soul, dealing with depression and a breakdown.

The current UK tour marks his comeback from six years away to deal with that, and the first half of the show shows a magnificent return to form. He mixes acute observational comedy on, say, the bleakness of budget hotels with his political agenda about corporations’ slipping between you and humanity’. The serious and the silly coexist in blisteringly funny routines.

His anti-woke sentiment comes out as an intelligent entreaty against universal entitlement, saying we’re not all equally good at everything and shouldn’t expect to be treated as such. His routine about the paradox of wanting to be accepted by the mainstream while stating your opposition to it is classy stuff, coming from a man proud of his place on the outside.

Tales from the grubby underside of life - both his own and others – and relayed with masterful storytelling skills, whether it's the crackheads in McDonald’s or the time he found himself in an accidental K-hole, in which time slowed to a crawl.

As he got deeper into his anti-progressive philosophising, I know how he must have felt.  

• Steve Hughes: Are You Serious? plays the Edinburgh Stand on November 6 and Glasgow Glee the following night.