Gary Delaney impressed with Gary In Punderland tour at Grantham Guildhall Arts Centre just as mid-week crowd impressed him

Grantham seemingly impressed Gary Delaney.

The TV comic had his trademark string of one liners ready to go as he performed Gary In Punderland at the Guildhall on Wednesday night.

But he was pleasantly surprised by the up-for-it mid-week crowd who laughed when he thought we might take a sharp intake of breath to tell him he had pushed the jokes too far.

Indeed the Grantham audience, warmed up first by Delaney himself, and then Steve Day aka The deaf Comedian, was hard to offend.

When a joke about toilet paper finally generated a collective groan rather than a laugh, Delaney nodded appreciatively, relishing that he had now found our tipping point. It had him reaching for his clipboard of stronger jokes, rather than backing off.

Delaney, who has been on the comedy circuit for more than two decades, is of course recognised for his work on TV.

But here he was unsanctioned. He was on form with his one-liners and responding to the crowd, tested out some new material for his next tour too.

In fact he jumped from his actual Punderland show to the hardcore Grantham version if his patter was to be believed, returned to the script with some dad jokes, before going ahead with new stuff for the next tour, and even best hitters from his last show.

Or rather, the jokes that got the most complaints.

As Delaney himself said: "There's a reason I'm not on TV anymore".

He finished one such joke with a deadpan "back to you Dara" to emphasise the point. You couldn't get away with this on telly, not even Mock The Week.

But Grantham lapped it up and Delaney seemingly enjoyed being there with us.

The jokes are not for repeating in a family newspaper, or in the office, or for anywhere to be honest.

And that's the beauty of the one liner, or rather Delaney's one liners. When he delivers them they are so obvious, with the audience occasionally giggling in anticipation of the second half of the joke, but ask me to retell you one and I'd struggle.

There were jokes about his dog, of Cornish cream teas, of Vegan sausage rolls and his wife (the comedian Sarah Millican) who, according to Delaney dislikes three of his jokes which involve her,. There was material on Amazon reviews and prostate exams.

Each one of them was finely crafted and a miniature work of art. They do take some remembering.

It makes sense why Delaney, cup of tea in hand, referred to his clipboard of new material throughout the evening and occasionally his phone too.

His trusty phone doubles up as a auditorium dictaphone. He records the whole show so he can listen back, see where the audiences winces rather than laughs, where he could have got away with more, or paced a joke differently. This is a hardworking comedian who wants to learn from this show, take all of that and feed it back into his next gig and next tour.

We can only hope he'll bring that show to Grantham as well for Delaney impressed us too. More please!