Three weeks ago, Canadian stand-up Stewart Francis warmed up the New Theatre audience for a few minutes while Ricky Gervais preened himself. Last Sunday, Francis returned to Oxford with his own show and his own warm-up. This is his first UK tour, but a reputation as a killer-deliverer of deadpan one-liners preceded him from TV appearances on Mock the Week and Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow. He’s a big man, barely moves on stage and challenges the audience with a steely gaze not to laugh.

They did. A lot. Francis has a languid, laid-back presence, which makes it all the more impressive that he fires off eight or ten laconic jokes a minute. They range in tone. There’s the droll: “I perform self-deprecating comedy, but I’m not very good at it”, “Did I already do my deja-vu joke?” or “There’s a fine line between hyphenated words”.

Then there’s the insensitive: “A friend of mine’s a dyslexic chef: don’t order the carp”; “Like most Canadians, I like to go clubbing . . . but if there aren't any seals around . . .”; or “I was served by a really ugly French waitress today: she gave me the crêpes”.

And then the properly challenging (but we all laughed): “I recently went for a part as Jesus Christ. Nailed it! I think they want to see me again”; “Do homeless people really get knock-knock jokes?” or “What if dolphins don’t want to swim with retarded children?”

There’s a lot of cleverness here, with a breadth of off-the- (North) wall humour that hit home just about every time for the enthusiastic audience. I liked the way he poked fun at himself – as if we really might think he looked like younger versions of Harrison Ford or James Garner (actually!) – and the utterly confident style in which he put over tough jokes: “I hate two types of people: racists and Norwegians . . . especially the black ones.”

Stewart Francis is a serious contender, and much funnier than many more established stand-up lags.