Stand up is, in this humble writer’s opinion, one of the world’s finest art forms, so when a chance to introduce my kids (aged 5 and 9) to it, I snapped it up!

Just like an adult comedy club, there were several different acts, and the compere Katie Pritchard did a fine job of getting everyone warmed up and involved, even managing to throw in a bit of very gentle and affectionate ribbing of some of the more zealous young audience members. Her medley of banana songs was silly and relentless enough to get the crowd thoroughly in the zone and stripped of any shyness or inhibitions, and even managed to overcome one youngster’s lifelong bananaphobia.

Next up, Eleri Morgan reversed the normal stand-up ruse of attacking the audience by practically inviting them to attack her. Deftly combining gymnastic and comedy talent made for a great performance - not that this crowd were willing to acknowledge that openly, denouncing her athletic skills at every opportunity. This ended up achieving another stand up staple of splitting the audience, this time into the wowed and sympathetic parents and their mean-spirited charges. Impressive!

Headline act Matt Green goes for a more traditional stand-up set of funny stories, weaving in characters from the audience, and just a teeny bit more combative with his hecklers. One of the great things about stand up is its ability to broach taboo subjects, and I was wondering exactly how this would work in a children’s setting. Matt managed to strike the balance just right - babies get slipped on, squirrels get stamped on (many of these scenarios coming from the little ones I hasten to add), wee gets everywhere (in the anecdotes!), but there is nothing to make any but the most uptight parent truly uncomfortable. Matt has the quick-witted comedian’s gift of being able to make a joke of almost any audience contribution that comes his way, enabling him to freely solicit material from the crowd. Their list of criteria for a good uncle - good at chess, musical, funny, energetic, have a beard, have a dog - elicits a despairing, “now you’re just making me feel inadequate,” and his ability to callback and weave in these comments later in the set is both impressive and, crucially, very funny!

Kids’ tastes and preferences change so quickly that it can be hard to pitch a show that is funny for both 6 year olds and those twice their age, but the mix of acts here managed to achieve that, with the edgier stuff enjoyed by the older members compensated for by plenty of silliness and physicality for the younger ones elsewhere in the sets. Definitely something for everyone.

Comedy Club 4kids is billed as 'the best comedians on the UK circuit doing what they do best…but without the rude bits!' As is to be expected of kids comedy, there were bottom jokes and poo jokes. When act #2, A bearded Celt called Conor McReynolds tried to go 'off-piste' by way of telling the audience of his attempts to get a job with a performing arts degree during the credit crunch, there were cries from the audience of ‘you’re boring me’! Children, it seems, can make terrible hecklers. This show gives kids a chance to taste a comedic routine with all the ambience of a beer- and smoke- filled basement of a comedy club but in the (child) friendliest way possible…

The afternoon made me feel an extraordinary sympathy with primary school teachers. The rowdy feel of a comedy club, the heckling, the cringing at (only occasionally!) a joke which fell flat on its face. Without the alcohol-fuelled camaraderie and etiquette of adults, I was left with a massive grown-up headache.

Adult audiences are usually, like a tidal wave; with the comedian or against them, but with kids there was no way of knowing. Some would audience participate enthusiastically, others would stick their hand up and leave the comedian to fill in the void. Some would heckle while overtly supporting the act, some would laugh while seeming to dismiss the act. A tough audience to crack.

The host, Tiernan Douieb, managed to make, for me, one of the funniest jokes out of such adversity; about being in Iffley. “So (to child) you’re from Iffley?” (“No”) “You’re not from Iffley?” (“No”) So there are two worlds out there; Iffley and not Iffley. A few jibes at the expense of the place ‘not Iffley’ and we’re all laughing.

Comedian #1, Paul Duncan McGarrity did a few gags relating to the meaning of first names, which caused quite a lot of mirth as to why people were given the names they were given. His own given name 'Paul Duncan' meant 'small and brown one', which led us back to the ubiquitous laughing point: poo. But please don’t get me wrong, none of the acts were ‘dumbed down’ in any way; on the contrary I thought it appealed both to the childishness of children and their intuitive intelligence, achieving a difficult balance indeed.

Finally; and it has to be said with a lot of relief (not of the brown kind) the final act, Jay Foreman, brought his guitar along. Bottoms were starting to wriggle on seats, so we desperately needed a bit of musicality to offset the worst of the hecklers & wrigglers. On his website he is lauded as the ‘Victoria Wood of the Spotify generation’ We bought the CD which in his own words, was ‘shamelessly plugged’ during the act, in part due to the gratitude I felt (as one so often feels as a parent) towards him for keeping the kids quiet.

This was a one-off show for now but Pegasus, thankfully, have a number of shows coming up which ought to do the fine balancing act of what can be broadly termed ‘edutainment’ for kids. Later this month they will have Chores which explores circus skills and Duckie, an imaginative retelling of The Ugly Duckling.