Les Keen

Britain's Oldest Stand-Up is an irresistibly charming documentary chronicling 90 year-old Jack Woodward's return to the stage after an absence of nearly half a century. The venue he has his heart set on is the Hammersmith Apollo in London, where he has admired the young upstart Michael McIntyre perform on the BBC's Live at the Apollo show.

And guess what? He lands a five-minute gig there as the warm-up for Ed Byrne. Armed with some new material supplied by comedy writer Les Keen, Jack heads for his date with destiny.

Nervous? Not a bit of it. Jack is excited at the prospect of playing to a 3,000-strong London audience, who hold no terrors for a comic who has played working men's clubs in Gateshead where hecklers threw coal.

"I heard you clapping and got here as quick as I could," is Woodward's opening line, and the laughs just keep coming. Turns out he's a pretty good comic.

My advice to anyone thinking of booking him is - don't delay.

Britain's Oldest Stand Up (More4) was a slight, sweet film by Clair Titley, in the new First Cut series, about her uncle Jack Woodward. He is a 90-year-old Chelsea Pensioner who harbours a dream of resurrecting the comedy act he used to perform in the 50s and 60s and - one of his favourite pastimes being to watch the new bloods plying their trade on the television show Live at the Apollo every Friday night - playing the Hammersmith venue himself. "I've took a fancy to it!" he exclaimed, in a burry, rural West Country accent that must itself be disappearing as fast as any pasture land down there. "I can't explain it - it's just there!"

Thanks to comedy writer Les Keen, who wrote him some new material to get him up to the mark, comedian Ed Byrne, who agreed to let Jack be his warm-up man (and gently warmed up the audience himself for Jack before he came on stage) and some giant prompt cards, he did it. There wasn't much else to the story but the rare sight of a nonagenarian, thrice-married, triple-bypassed (last year) incurable optimist had a charm all of its own.