For a few minutes the other night, I became part of comedian Stewart Lee’s act.

Though we’ve never met, he felt obliged to inform the audience of just under 1,000 that there was a ‘Daily Mirror reporter’ in the audience to review his show.

It also gave him the opportunity to explain that his material would be coming from six half-hour sets he was preparing for a new TV show, which he’s going to be recording in December.

And he said, because there was a ‘Daily Mirror reporter’ in the audience, he had improved his material for this review, so he would appreciate me giving the show one star less than it merited – as the rest of the tour wouldn’t be as good. It got the required laugh.

According to Stewart, I should be telling readers that the best part of his show was when he – supposedly in the character of Animal Magic presenter Johnny Morris – acts out smashing a snake’s egg on stage….’definitely worth two stars of anyone’s money’.

The Johnny Morris piece – part of a longer wildlife one, including mentions for Ben Fogle and Michaela Strachan – worked well and, as Lee rightly pointed out, elicited a round of applause…’micromanaged’, as he put it, ‘but got still a round of applause’.

But, sorry, Stew, the funniest moment that had me in stitches was when you ripped UKIP to shreds.

Lee, 45, took the conceit of UKIP’s deputy leader Paul Nuttall warning about the influx of skilled Bulgarian workers later in the year, then ran and ran with it, imagining Nuttall telling previous immigrants, such as the Poles of the last 10 years and the West Indians and Pakistanis of the 1950s not to bother coming here.

Then, in characteristic form, he took it to surreal lengths, extending Nuttall’s remarks to the Huguenots of medieval France, the Anglo-Saxons, the Neolithics, the first fish to ever make it on to land and then nothingness itself. All addressed with the same degree of intolerant UKIP remarks.

By the time Lee reached the end of that piece, many of the audience had tears of laughter running down their cheeks.

His eviscerating comment on Nuttall and co came in a fast-moving second half, with a rapid-fire range of observational comedy.

His latest material is, without doubt, some of the sharpest he’s ever produced and an improvement even on his popular Carpet Remnant World tour of a year or so ago.

Fellow stand-ups came into his line of fire – Alan Davies, Michael McIntyre, Jimmy Carr, Roy ‘Chubby Brown’, Jim Davidson – and were witheringly and amusingly put down.

And there were unsurprising pops at Tories David Cameron and Margaret Thatcher, but Labour leader Ed Miliband didn’t escape either – ‘For Miliband to make a mess of Labour, after Blair, is like catching a baby that’s been dropped out of an aeroplane, then to trip over and drop it in the gutter’.

The wonderful thing about Lee – undoubtedly the best comedian in Britain – is that he doesn’t give a damn, yet eschews the kind of scatological humour so many older ‘funnymen’ employ or to the excessive foul language that many younger ones rely on.

Sure, there are a few swear words in his intelligent act, but they are used for maximum comedic effect, not for shock value nor as an obscene lingua franca.

Sorry again, Stew, but you do get the full five stars… just take one off if it makes you feel better!