WE seem to be having problems with asterisks. In our preview piece on The Idiot B*****d Band in the Adver last week, we called them The Idiot B*****d Band.

But on posters I saw at the Wyvern on Friday night, they were The Idiot Bast**d Band. And I’m sure I’ve also seen it printed as The Idiot B*stard Band.

One could question, in this day an age, whether the asterisks are necessary anyway. Suffice to say this is a band made up of comedy greats Adrian Edmondson, Phill Jupitus, Rowland Rivron and Neil Innes.

Edmondson gave one explanation for the band name: “I’m an idiot, and these three are complete ba**ards.” (Or should that be basta**s?).

B*s*a*r*ds or not, this quartet gave us a memorable night of merriment with a selection of songs that ranged from the plain daft to the surreal.

There were songs by the likes of Ian Dury, Jake Thackeray and Innes’ comic supergroup The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. And there were self-penned songs – one about a man on a train that name-checked Swindon, and one about a man who didn’t like furniture, which had the woman next to me shaking with laughter.

The best was saved to last. “This band needs an anthem,” Jupitus told us. So with a big introduction, and the glow of a couple of hundred mobile phones waving in the air, the big man, quivering with emotion, sang: “I am a Coldplay song, I am earnest… and about five minutes too long.”

For the encore, Jupitus informed us we were about to hear a proper anthem, and with that Innes brought the house down with a cheerful rendition of the Bonzo’s classic Urban Spaceman.

And so we left the theatre with sides split, and strange tunes whirling in our heads. It was ******* great show, and The Idiot *astar* Band are the d**’s ********!