Chris Rock is a rich man in America - one of the most revered stand-up comics of the past ten years, with a film career and his own sitcom, Everybody Hates Chris. But landing in London for his first British tour, he got a rude awakening at the currency exchange. “I gave the guy $3,000,” he says, “and he gave me back a loaf of bread.”

In fact, this 90-minute set proves that Rock's comedy has as much purchase in England as it does at home. Stalking onstage to the sort of reception I've not previously heard at a comedy gig, he's poised and provocative in his blue suit, his delivery as lean as his flexible frame. He's a black comedian, but you don't have to be black to be thrilled by his perfectly timed insights any more than you have to be a split-lipped secret agent to enjoy Casino Royale.

His targets? Showbiz! Barack and Hillary! Money! Racism! Sex! He takes on the taboos you want him to - but he's so hyperconfident about it that it's easy to forget just how distinctive a heretic he is.

Some comedians make a fuss about their daring. The only thing that Rock wouldn't dare to do is waste our time in that way. He gets to the joke, fast - “They take white kids quick, don't they?” he says of Britney's battles with the authorities. “Even O.J. Simpson kept his kids!”

Like all true stars, he doesn't ask for our approval: he knows he's got it and he thinks he deserves it. But Rock isn't glib. He can look like he's going to be - he argues that white men must mind their language, and you think, hey-ho, a pointed defence of political correctness. But then he proves his point in ways you don't expect, with passion and insight and irony. Can a white man use the N-word? “The answer is ... not really.”

Rock mixes uncensored intelligence - “I don't think Barack realises he's the black candidate; he thinks he can win fair and square” - with a true showman's awareness that self-expression cuts it only when it's a joke. He looks at his own exalted status, living in a $3 million home (“blame the game, not the player”) in an area that has only three other black residents - Denzel Washington, Mary J. Blige and Jay-Z. “You know what the white guy next door to me does?” asks Rock. “He's a f***ing dentist!”

Rock has rocked harder than this - mixing old and new material deprives him of the unstoppable momentum of, say, his 2004 HBO special. His material on Bush and Iraq is generic next to his tirades about debt culture and slave-owning former presidents (“American money is nothing more than rapists trading cards”). His sequence on baseball gets lost in translation; he seems to know it.

But the closing straight is a series of scintillating set-pieces that culminates in a rude, merciless dissection of the gender differences. It's stereotyping, sure, and even from this enraptured crowd there are a few cries of protest. It's also full of hilarious, unspeakable truths. Worry too much about Rock's short cuts and you'll miss out on the unparalleled perspicacity and audacity of a comic fit to take on the world.

Tour details: www.ticketzone.co.uk

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