Half stand-up, half raconteur, Hugh Hughes is all heart. His affable, versatile persona makes the evening feel like a night in the pub with a likeable, if slightly manic, friend. The audience participation, which could so easily be cringe-worthy, is gentle and highly amusing – although that doesn’t mean I’m not glad he didn’t pick on me. Shon Dale-Jones, whose alter-ego Hugh Hughes is, is an engaging and charismatic performer – he has to be since all he brings to the stage are a microphone, a bottle of water, a bucket of badges and his wits.

It’s hard to tell how much of the show is scripted and how much is made up on the spur of the moment: some of the audience ad-libbing is clearly just that, and the general theme (friendship, in this case) is clearly rehearsed, but the fluent, good-humoured chatter trips of Hughes’s tongue so rapidly that it’s difficult to pin down. And that is part of the charm; you are never sure what’s going to happen next.

“In every generalisation, there is a truth”, says Hughes, generalising. But what could be sentimental tosh in less skilled hands here is playful and poignant. Hughes both tells stories (where he plays all the characters) and constructs an ingenious meta-theatrical narrative around them, where he commentates on his own use of theatrical devices.

In the space of 80 minutes we cover childhood friendships, falling in love, existential crises, philosophical musings on perspective, cross-dressing, and sheep. Where else are you going to find an evening like that? Hugh Hughes is like nothing I’ve seen before – and I doubt I will again: what Dale-Jones makes genuine, honest and serious (and hilarious) could seem hollow and pretentious if done by someone else. The constant evaluation and commentary shouldn’t work and yet it does. Hughes is clearly enjoying playing with these tropes and conventions, but he does so with a lightness of touch that belies the hard work, and deep knowledge and understanding, that he must have.

Hugh Hughes is at the Junction Theatre until Sunday 27th March. For more information and tickets see the website here.