Wolves is the butt of the joke as I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue lands at the Grand Theatre

So started a night of frivolity and rib-poking at the Grand Theatre, courtesy of the team behind Radio 4's iconic show I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue.

The host city took a battering, as is the tradition, and was described by host Jack Dee as "one wrong junction off the M6" – although Dee got his comeuppance when he pronounced Wightwick wrong, to howls of derision from the audience.

Following eleven sell-out tours from 2007, the multi award-winning antidote to panel games has been on tour, ending at the Grand Theatre in front of a packed house of adoring fans, average age just below 60.

Not many episodes of the iconic show are recorded each year, so the chance to experience the silliness has to be cherished.

Since its inception in 1972, the show has seen its success blossom from the impish son of ‘I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again’ to the big daddy of all panel games. The format of the game is very simple: four players are given silly things to do by Dee, with Colin Sell setting some of them to music.

The show was first broadcast on April 11 1972 and the first episode featured regulars Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden, Bill Oddie and Jo Kendall. Jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton was appointed chairman, and with the panellists established a pattern of daft humour and bad puns that won a cult following and several major radio awards.

When Barry Cryer and Willie Rushton joined Garden and Brooke-Taylor as regulars, I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue developed its own distinct identity. Lyttelton's deadpan style provided a brilliant contrast to the idiocy of the panellists – a style that suits modern-day host Jack Dee perfectly.

This time there was no recording taking place, although the format at the Grand was exactly like the show. Instead it was a ‘greatest hits’ presentation, sourcing the very finest material from Clue’s enormous archives (ably, we were told, retrieved by Samantha and her two kindly archivist friends).

All the favourites were there from the radio show and, without the shackles of a half-hour slot on Radio 4, it could enjoy the chance to breathe over a glorious two hours and 20 minutes. And it could be much, much smuttier.

Dee was joined by pianist Colin Sell, who silently became the butt of many of the jokes as he provided music for One Song to the Tune of Another amongst other games.

Rory Bremner, Tony Hawkes, Pippa Evans and Marcus Brigstocke drove the jokes on relentlessly, and took part in a glorious improvised musical on the subject of the Crooked House. Brigstocke put on a creditable Black Country accent and Bremner took on the role of Donald Trump who entered the stage with funding to rebuild the stricken pub, on condition it is named after him (Crooked as ****).

The audience, who were allowed into the fun and games with a session on the kazoo, lapped it up.

This might be a veteran of our airwaves, but it bounced along at a pace, the old jokes knitting perfectly with a little modern satire and, of course, the insert of the all-important Mornington Crescent game show.

It was hilarious throughout and the I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue devotees left the Grand happy with their fill of silliness as they await a new series to land on their radios. Fifty two years from its inception, this antidote to panel games is going strong.