Just because the point bears repetition - the first half of this show was the finest, most enjoyable thing I have ever seen, in any theatre, anywhere, ever. There have been some close contenders - Frank Sinatra live at the Royal Albert Hall, Stanley Jordan live at the Jazz Cafe, David Copperfield at Earl's Court on his first UK tour, Mac King's Las Vegas show, and so on. But Ricky Jay On The Stem takes first prize.

The programme also featured this truly bizarre advert for a car:

Some houses. Wet piece of road. Car. Some empty mineral water bottles. The copy says: "The Restyled 2003 Toyota Avalon. With a car this luxurious, only one question remains - sparkling or still?"

I freely confess to being comprehensively baffled by this. As far as I can tell, it doesn't make any effort to 'sell' the car's virtues to me, and in fact makes no sense at all. It costs a toe-curling amount of money to set up this kind of photo shoot, produce the finished artwork and then run it in theatre programmes and elsewhere - so Toyota must figure it is money well spent. But why? If anyone can explain why this is a good advert, please let me know.