I don’t often see live comedy shows twice but I made an exception with Sausage Time. I enjoyed it so much when I reviewed it I returned with family and friends and it didn't disappoint me, even though I knew what was coming.

So watching this DVD is the third time I’ve been subjected to Harry Hill’s banger-based lunacy and it still doesn’t disappoint. Yes, of course you can’t beat the live experience, but there is still plenty of fun to be had watching a middle-aged man trying to drink an entire bucket of water or jump around like a nutjob on a soiled mattress from the comfort of your own sofa.

I’ve been thinking a lot about where modern comedians come in the comedy pantheon since Lee Evans announced his retirement and Hill is up there with the greats. Some of Sausage Time is pure old school vaudeville – the collapsing ventriloquist's dummy, the musical backing band – but the former doctor injects a phenomenal amount of modernity into it. 

Somehow Hill manages to be both knowing and innocent at the same time. The high energy chaos looks simple but it clearly isn’t. Comical running gags and themes are set up early in the show and callbacks later on make them even funnier. 

It would be churlish to spoil some of the surprises but this gig ends in a kind of all-out comic anarchy which is more like a drug-fuelled dream sequence than a stand-up gig. Hill may have had a misfire earlier this year with his X Factor Musical. but he is firing on all cylinders in Sausage Time. 

Buy Sausage Time here.