Reeves & Mortimer, Leicester De Montfort Hall

Even if the evening had turned out to be rubbish, there was always going to be a warm welcome for Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer's return to live performance with 25 Years of Reeves & Mortimer: The Poignant Moments. Aside from the obvious room for nostalgia, Mortimer almost didn't make it; this tour could start only after he had emergency triple bypass surgery last year.

Thankfully, it hasn't affected either his or Reeves' gift for utter silliness, as their appearance at Dave's Leicester Comedy Festival proved.

The show starts with a series of clips from their career, made in grainy black and white to underline how long they've been at this entertaining lark, and touches on their early live days in clubs and television series including Vic Reeves Big Night Out, The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer and Shooting Stars. 

There are welcome appearances by most of the fans' favourite characters, including Greg Mitchell the talking Labrador, awful folk singers Mulligan and O'Hare, and pretentious contemporary dance group Action! Image! Exchange!, but their most famous phrase, "You wouldn't let it lie" is, cleverly, almost an aside as the duo make great efforts to give the material real freshness. That said, the delighted audience knew their lines, with "What's on the end of the stick, Vic?" and "Trumped right up" in response to Judge Nutmeg's query of "What are the charges?" coming bang on cue.

Graham Lister is back on Novelty Island ("Like a miniature Britain's Got Talent, but with better acts") doing horrible things with laaaaard to a mask of Benedict Cumberbatch, while high-pitched brothers Donald and Davey Stott hilariously recreate a shambling episode of This Is Your Life.

To aid costume changes, the duo use pre-recorded inserts, best among them their crap Urban Athletes and a spoof ad for Geordie Jeans - reet tight around the crotch, like - but they use these sparingly. It's an energetic two hours in which Reeves and Mortimer sing, dance and run about the stage, made even more enjoyable by their obvious enjoyment of performing, their affection for each other and their ad libs, even if there there's the occasional lost phrase as they appear to be performing more to each other than us.

Their comedy has never been time-specific and its fantastical elements mean it doesn't greatly rely on cultural references. There's the occasional skit that Reeves and Mortimer don't quite pull off (chief among them the Japanese Dr Shakamoto, who can't speak English very well), but mostly the evening is deliriously daft fun – much of which makes no sense whatever, but who cares? It's good to have them back.