There was definitely a nostalgic vibe to the evening. Never more so that when Toyah went from Billy Idol’s Rebel Yell to I Want To Be Free via Serial Cereal Eater. John Otway was as manic as ever, dusting off Cor Baby That’s Really Free. And for real surrealism there was Sooty and Sweep doing an end of the pier knockabout act, with Sooty squirting a water pistol at the compere and Sweep bum-rushing the royal box.

For comedy fans, however, the major treat was Bill Bailey, who closed the first half. At he introduced him Shuttleworth – "oof!"– tripped on Bailey’s guitar lead and broke off a piece of the guitar which seemed to be an eerie foreshadowing of the later Badly Behaved Boy incident. Bailey was great, particularly his tale of low-budget West Country falconry - “with an oven glove and a peperami”. 

The other major highlight – apart from Lorraine Bowen doing her Crumble song – came in the second half when Jilted John (who looked very much like Shuttleworth, but in a snorkel parka) played only his second live gig in 37 years. If only Shuttleworth had been in the wings at the time to see it.

Events did end on a high though, with Leee John of Imagination doing a version of Shuttleworth’s Disaffected Youth (“Unkempt and uncouth”) that turned the plaintive ballad into a genuinely stirring soul standard. One final Shuttleworth medley gathered all the acts together. Well, at least all the acts that were still around more than three hours after the show had started…