Frankie Boyle does not want to be your friend. Poised and steady in his cheerless brown suit, marking his territory from one side of the stage to the other, he looks more like he’s come to collect the rent than give us a good time. “Ah Basingstoke,” he greets us, “I had no idea where you were till I looked you up on the map. This morning.” But the Glaswegian comedian hasn’t sold out every last seat of his latest British tour by intimidation tactics alone. The most aggressive – and best – performer on the crazily competitive BBC Two panel game Mock the Week, he’s attracted an audience who are primed for his softly spoken hostility.

If you want to know what lies behind the cruel quips, you may have to wait for the autobiography. But Boyle’s craftsmanship is beyond question. Working his way through his front row of fools, he victimises this collection of surveyors, students and IT workers with effortless efficiency. It’s not always edifying – one bald comedy-lover is compared to a dildo – but its effortless nerve is exciting to be near.

His jokes, likewise, are an exercise in pushing his luck as concisely as he can. He got into a tiny bit of trouble recently for an old Mock the Week gag about the Queen, but that was nothing compared with some of his other Royal Family gags – which, after a quick crisis meeting with my editor, we’ve opted not to pass on – or references to Baby P. “Why do paedophiles always have beards and glasses?” he muses. “What is it about that look that children find so sexy?” He himself, he reveals, lost his virginity to his mother’s best friend: “My father.” If he sounds appalling, bear in mind that Boyle is not as nasty as his material. He doesn’t so much distance himself from unacceptable sentiments as distance himself from any sentiment.

If his softly psychotic pose is forgivable and funny it’s because his churlishness makes everything fair game – including, but only in passing, his own churlishness. You may, like me, blanch at some of his more gynaecological material. But then he’ll come up with something just as cruel but more surprising – about pet-lovers, say – and all is forgiven: “I’ve tried to find love among my own species and I’ve f***ed it up.” So this is not a night for softies – and the support act, Martin Bigpig, is almost as pugnacious as the headliner. Boyle is certainly charismatic, and mixes credit crunch material with old-school filth and audience interaction without visibly changing gears.

But 70-odd minutes of his bespectacled machismo, with only the odd twitch of his nose to suggest any vulnerability, is plenty.

His tough act sustains him but it also keeps the emotional temperature low.

Next show November 28, Embassy Theatre, Skegness, 08456 740505. Touring to December 17

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