It might not quite be up there with the Spice Girls reunion but Ardal O'Hanlon's return to stand-up this year is definitely good news. He confessed that his back is not as strong as it was and at times his material was a little creaky, too, but his current Arts Theatre residency is well worth catching.

As he modestly joked: "It'll be really slick by Saturday." Last night he seemed too nervy to build up a decent head of steam but there were plenty of flashes of the old O'Hanlon brilliance.

Discussing the smoking ban back home in Ireland he painted a gloriously absurd picture of late-night illegal lock-ins full of dodgy characters nipping outside for a fag every 10 minutes.

Many of the highlights were his reflections on the tightening grip of officialdom. While driving recently he saw another driver using his mobile and had to come up with a lawful way to inform the authorities: "I had one hand on the steering wheel, the other trying to tie a note to the leg of a pigeon."

The politely enthusiastic audience was undoubtedly present because of his deft, daft contributions to Father Ted rather than the blander My Hero and it was rewarded after the interval, when he told the true-and-weird story of the Irish bookie who gave odds of 1,000-1 on his fictional sitcom priest Dougal becoming Pope. Truer-and-weirder, some punters placed bets because the odds were too tempting.

Much of the subject matter elsewhere trod similar ground to the work of fellow fortysomethings Sean Hughes and Jack Dee. The horrors of hairy nostrils, the perils of parenthood, the nightmare of flatpack furniture and the travails of air travel all put in mandatory appearances. Thankfully, O'Hanlon unearthed his own whimsical twists.

He also had a distinctive explanation for the tension between East and West. Forget Islamic fundamentalism, it is all because we envy their curly scimitars: "They could kill us round corners." Not the most cutting edge show but sharp in all the right places.

• Until 8 December (08700 601742, www.artstheatrelondon.com)