Forget comedy, let’s talk statistics. When Michael McIntyre finishes this tour of 54 arena dates in December he will have played to half a million people — not as big an audience for his Comedy Roadshow on BBC One this summer but more people than most acts play to in a lifetime.

If you are farther back than Row P, you will be watching one of the three Godzilla-sized McIntyres that are beamed on the video screens placed around the stage. Wherever you are in the arena you cannot avoid the 10ft-high letters that spell out his name. Eddie Izzard? Bill Bailey? Al Murray? Losers. McIntyre, the man who mines the minutiae of everyday life for comic potential, is mounting the biggest tour of the year.

He is not as strong a flavour as comedy’s other arena-fillers, and that’s his strength as well as his limitation. He’s the Lee Evans you don’t want to strangle. Fluent, perky (who else skips on stage unless they are being chased by men with butterfly nets?), personable and concise, he’s the acme of observational comic.

At his best this 33-year-old stand-up from North London can make you feel a little less alone. He can take your secret little habits — forgetting what pump you’re at when you pay at the service station, sticking one leg out of the duvet when you’re too hot — and reassure you that your foibles are everyone’s foibles. And when he brings his vulnerability into play — his awkwardness in the gym changing rooms while other men let it all hang out — he is hugely appealing.

However, while it’s easy to like McIntyre’s act, it is harder to love it. Much of it involves him taking a Martian’s-eye-view of our habits. He points out that we behave differently in changing rooms, that morning breath smells, that eating out has a weird etiquette of its own, that we go on holiday for the sunshine then spend our time complaining about the heat. All neat points but he’s going over ground that many other comedians have already covered. This can feel like a stand-up starter kit.

While he is crowd-pleasing on this scale — did I mention the £1 million book deal? — there may not be any incentive for McIntyre to go deeper. He is the same uncannily accomplished comedian he was six years ago when he was playing 50-seaters at the Edinburgh Fringe; all that has changed is the lack of crowdplay — hard to manage, no doubt, in a 12,000-seat arena.

The lack of substance is tiring over 90 minutes. You want to know more about what he cares about, what makes him angry, happy, sad.

He is never less than a consummate pro but you may wish there were more moments when he was more than a consummate pro.

Next show tomorrow, Birmingham NIA, then touring to December 2.

www.offthekerb.co.uk

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