If there’s one thing we all wished Stewart Lee would do more of in his routine, he tells us, it was anti-Islam material.

The assembled audience at the opening night of Magners Greenwich Comedy Festival got a full 25 minutes of it yesterday, and then 25 minutes on urine for good measure.

After a year at various venues across the borough, the festival has this year returned to its home in circus-style tents in the historic naval part of town.

Newly sponsored by Magners, it is – as you would hope – a cheery affair, with street food and cider aplenty.

Despite his revelation at the outset of his headline set, grouchy godfather of alternative comedy Stewart Lee hasn’t morphed into Roy Chubby Brown (although he does pretend to at one point), instead he deconstructs the idea of performing anti-islamic comedy.

In fact, he deconstructs the whole form of stand-up comedy and picks it apart for the audience to marvel at its inner workings like a complex Swiss timepiece.

Though he affects a necessary air that his whole set is not precision-perfect, it of course is. Even the lines he appears to fluff turn out to be delightful segues into some other material.

He’s too clever and contrived for some but as most of yesterday’s audience will tell you, he almost always hits the spot and the way he constructs he set and his craft are a thing to wonder at way beyond the (plentiful) laughs.

Before Stewart Lee, Orpington’s greatest comedian Josie Long charmed the audience with her unconventional tale of relationship woe and ageing. Like Lee, she digs down into the structure of stand-up comedy brings left-field laughs. The climax of her routine was squirmingly hilarious and, as ever, flawlessly performed.

Opening act Tony Law was another who plays with the conventions of stand-up, this time in a wonderfully abstract way.

He came on wearing a skin-tight onesie, interacted with ‘old friends’ in the audience who he hadn’t seen since they were hidden in the Trojan horse together, sporadically blew a trombone and performed an interpretive dance with a beach ball and a surprised, but game, member of the audience.

It was gleefully, wonderfully, bats**t crazy.

In between it all, compere Ed Gamble get the motor running despite encountering what must have been the most difficult room he’s experienced in a long time.

Who could have predicted that the old ‘what’s your name?’ routine could throw up so many curveballs? Noddy, was fine, but Big Ears, Cher, Bono, Beyonce and Mick Jagger pushed him almost to the limit and he did well to stay sharp and keep the laughs flowing.

The Magners Greenwich Comedy Festival returns to the National Maritime Museum from the 24th-28th September.

This year's line-up features Rich Hall, Milton Jones, Nina Conti and more, with tickets starting at £15. Book your tickets at Greenwichcomedyfestival.co.uk or follow @MagnersUK to enter daily ticket competitions.