I learnt a vital lesson from my old boss, Sir Basil Blackwell: if you want to live happily into old age, continue to take an interest in the young, and never feel “things were better 20 years ago”. Thus it was that I banished all thoughts of Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Rowan Atkinson, Michael Palin etc while watching this year’s pick of student comedy in The Oxford Revue — or, to be precise, comedy as it’s to be found in Oxford, Cambridge, and Durham universities.

Subject matter first: TV’s University Challenge (a splendidly irritable Paxman send-up here), tampons, erectile dysfunction, computer one-upmanship (Macs versus PCs), airline captains, a fraught newspaper editorial meeting (“We’ve got nothing on page three”), all were given an airing. In an Oxford sketch, there was a great row between the green man and the red man on a pedestrian crossing: “Why is it that you only see people come running when you’re illuminated?” snapped the red man resentfully. Durham presented a disturbing picture of the Catholic Church in the computer age, with a visit to the e-confessional: “You have selected adultery with 111 women.”

So far, so reasonably good. Oxford had a distinct advantage because director Jessica Edwards had plainly taught her team how to project to a Playhouse audience. Too often Cambridge and Durham lost punchlines in a haze of muttering. But gradually I got depressed: where was the cutting edge material, where was the feeling: “I’d never thought of making a sketch out of that before.” A short time to prepare, I know, but there wasn’t a word about MPs’ expenses. One routine had a mother and father arguing, while their son, labelled “Berlin Wall”, stood between them. “For heaven’s sake, all this was 20 years ago,” said the son wearily. My point precisely.