Sarah Millican, Winter Gardens, Margate review - enjoyable filth

Sarah Millican is clearly glad to be back on stage, and the noisy reception she gets at the Winter Gardens in Margate suggests her fans are glad to have her back too. Bobby Dazzler is a crowd pleaser in much the same vein as her previous shows – unflinching honesty about women's bodies, and scatological filth.

The first half of the show is mostly taken up with chatting to the audience about some of their dafter lockdown hobbies – knitting and yoga being two of the shout-outs. It's always a risk that people will be shy or that everyone did the same thing – knitting and yoga – but in Margate Millican did manage to weave some decent previously written material into this seemingly improvised part of the show. It did, however, feel overextended and the audience's attention – certainly of many people around me – rather drifted.

The second half is a different story, however, with Millican back to her energetic best as she describes her own lockdown and what has been happening in the past two years – and at 46 her body seems to be letting her down.

But this isn't her moaning about the vicissitudes of life; she considers it a privilege to be able to grow old because many do not have the chance, as recent events have taught us. But just when you think she's getting soppy, she turns this observation into a wickedly funny set of gags about Madonna being caught in a state of perpetual youth.

Millican covers a lot of territory – the joys of wearing a nightie (otherwise she ends up with “a chinful of tits” when she lies in bed), what the twee slogans on women's clothing should really say, sanitary products, smear tests, diarrhoea and piles, and much more – with some given eye-watering detail and a knowing look to the audience when she pushes things towards the ugh.

She doesn't hold back talking about the lumps and bumps and the odours and the seepages of women's bodies – real women, that is, not advertising men's ideal of them. Hers may not be the experience of every middle-aged woman, but there was much laughter of recognition in the room. She's comfortable with who she is – when a friend complimented her skin and asked if she had had fillers, Millican replied, “Yes, cakes and pies” – but, she tells us, she did try to shed some lockdown weight, using the version of the Couch to 5K app that she provided the voiceover for. How meta is that?

But the body positivity isn't part of any deeper delve into feminism, as Millican's descriptions of getting her husband to do his share of the housework by making them challenges attest. No, she has made a career out of good old-fashioned filth, and the audience gets their money's worth.

• Sarah Millican touring until 18 December
• More comedy reviews on theartsdesk