CAN it really be 16 years since Julian Clary joked on live TV about indulging in strange sexual practices with the Chancellor of the Exchequer?

The media were convinced that he’d overstepped the mark and that he’d never work again.

But as Clary himself proudly told his Pavilion audience on Sunday night, his career has been booming ever since.

Indeed Julian Clary at the age of 50 has evolved into a strange combination of outrageous gay comic and mainstream light entertainer.

Somehow, no matter how crude the repartee (and it gets pretty extreme at times) he carries a curious whiff of the family entertainer about him. He’s also genuinely very funny.

His Lord of the Mince tour is a mixture of predictably filthy stand-up, anecdotal tall tales, scurrilous suggestions about celebrity chums and some clever audience participation.

Which is how, I suppose, a Bournemouth bus driver called Wayne ended up being re-named Nobby - The Chosen One and having a chocolate inserted in his navel.

Charismatic and brilliant with a double-entendre or 10, Julian Clary delivers a slickly packaged diet of gay humour to an audience that is probably two thirds heterosexual.

I’m no expert but I get the distinct impression that Julian Clary is to gay comedy what Status Quo are to rock ‘n’ roll. I suspect that those looking for something really radical should head for the clubs.