Stand-up comedian Ian Cognito died onstage during a performance in Bicester on Thursday night.

Minutes after joking about the unimaginable horror of having a stroke and then waking up speaking Welsh, the 60-year-old sat down on a chair and laid back.

The audience, already whipped up from what had been a hugely successful set, was in fits of laughter.

There they sat, laughing, for several minutes, unaware that Cognito, 60, had died.

Eventually, a nervous-looking compere shuffled on to the stage at the Atic bar in Bicester and asked someone to call an ambulance.

Panicked staff attempted to perform chest compressions and asked the audience to leave while they waited for paramedics.