Shapiro produces some of the most inventive filth you've ever heard. He makes the spiky likes of Doug Stanhope look like an Andrex puppy. Being a shock-jock comic is arguably trickier in Britain than in America. There, the word c*** is enough to elicit O-shaped mouths, whereas here, the response is relatively hard to provoke. It's a credit to Shapiro, then, that he has the power to shock us and be hilarious with it.