The emo-comedian Noel Fielding told an audience at the Royal Albert Hall to stab Nigel Farage, after a “bizarre rambling joke” about racist teabags. The event was held in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust and even Frankie Boyle was on best behaviour.

But when the BBC’s Never Mind The Buzzcocks team captain came onto the stage it was to make the tea joke. At one point he compared Nigel Farage to the root vegetable fennel, this led to some in the audience to clap. This led Fielding to say, “don’t applaud Farage, stab him”.

The comment was part of a lacklustre effort from the 41-year-old, in which he was widely accepted to have “lost the audience”. The Evening Standard’s review said: “after a strong start he lost parts of the audience with an absurdist ramble about being a ‘chicken man’.”

One member of the audience was far less charitable, he told Breitbart London: “Even Frankie Boyle managed not to offend anyone, in fact he was funny for once. Fielding on the other hand had people walking out with sheer boredom.

“He just droned on for ages about racism towards teabags, the joke isn’t even worth repeating. But it was definitely off-colour to hear him talking about wanting people to stab Nigel Farage.

“Things like this have happened in the past, and it was particularly distasteful given the recent attack on Farage’s teenage children. This was supposed to be an event about helping teenage cancer victims, not making jokes about robbing teenagers of their father.”

Whilst there is no suggestion Fielding was making a serious threat, his comments are likely to go down badly given the heightened security situation in Britain. The joke is said to have led to a “collective intake of breath” from the audience.