Paul Foot sums up his show better himself than any reviewer could.

In a routine entitled ‘Madness’, he informs the Lowry’s Quays Theatre that they will be laughing, but that they will not know why.

After some comedy gigs you leave with jokes that you can recite to friends and family, but you would have trouble doing that after a night with Paul Foot.

The absurdist comedian’s latest tour ‘Words’ sees Foot take a left field view at everything from toast, loneliness and homosexuality, as well as his theory that men don’t really like beer.

The comic previously graduated from Oxford University with a degree in maths, and took a high flying job at a computer software company in the height of the dot com bubble.

However he hated the industry and instead pursued a career in stand up comedy, and his floral language, eccentric dress sense and verbose style has since influenced the likes of Russell Brand.

He is perhaps best known for appearing on several TV shows such as Never Mind the Buzzcocks and 8 out of 10 Cats, but it is his stand up shows that allow him to explore his most surreal ideas.

After a rants on the subject of toast, and later on why life is such a palaver, which Foot admits contains no thematic development, just repeating the fact that life is a palaver, comes a few of the more bizarre minutes of comedy I have witnessed.

Foot’s ‘Madness’ section is a stream of consciousness with little meaning, one such word of wisdom being “You know who is making a comeback? Horse Jesus” and saying that one audience member looks “like a Hispanic bathtub.”

His ‘disturbances’ provide more of the same silliness, as he reads off quirky musings from a card, the other side which has been hand painted by Foot.

Foot says these utterances come from when he has been in a particularly disturbed frame of mind, such as when he hit his head on a cupboard door, and need to be seen to be believed and fully appreciated.

His show takes place with the set of Educating Rita in the background, as the Willy Russell play is being held in the theatre during the week, and Foot’s show strangely matches the university backdrop very well.

He is one of the last true English eccentrics, and had The Lowry laughing all night, even if they hadn’t the faintest idea why.