Last night I went to see Simon Amstell offer up the existential crisis he appears to be in the throes of, for the scrutiny and amusement of a Brighton audience.

A fairly easy crowd to please with this sort of material. Most of the residents of Brighton are suffering from, have just pulled through or are fast approaching an existential crisis. It's the kind of place that brings one on. It's full of hair hoppers and name droppers - people in their mid to late twenties and sometimes beyond, who are struggling to balance the twin demands of style and substance. Ethical fashion, meaningful employment, responsibly sourced drugs, organic beer, charity shop chic, good times and bad politics.

It's a lot to have to fit in, to fit in.

I'm sure that sometimes the people of Brighton secretly wish that they could stay in on a Tuesday night and watch Eastenders with a multi-pack of Monster Munch, but they can't. They have to be out there, doing it, seeing it, living it, loving it. And making sure everybody knows about it. Exhausting.

Simon is also struggling with the demands of having it all. Having it all and learning to overcome the anxiety that such a tenuous position brings with it. So that, you know, you can actually have fun, not just seek solace in congratulating yourself on creating a series of impressive memories, to be filed for future use should it all go wrong. Which of course it will.

I think this is why the show sat so well with this particular audience. They knew just what he was on about. They had the hairstyles and hangovers to prove it. They were drinking on a Sunday night. Simon readily informed them that this automatically meant they were miserable.

It's not exactly the stuff of belly laughs, but it was unexpectedly both entertaining and comforting to know that a man possessed with such searingly evil wit, who gave Jamelia a hernia and drove Preston to storming off set before he'd even got started on that glittery cardigan, is just as lost and confused and lonely as the mediocre pop stars he ridicules so masterfully. The people whose music we've probably purchased or at least danced drunkenly to in some wind-swept hopeless night spot, in an effort to overcome our own loneliness.

We're all in this together you know.

You, me, Simon and Anthony Costa off Blue.