“Who has not seen me before?” asks Daniel Kitson, to an ink-black auditorium. He squints past the lights as some hands go up. “Oh, well,” he chuckles, “you're in for a real treat, I'm excellent at this.”

Irony. Perhaps. For Kitson is one of the most talented comics to arrive this decade - a Perrier-winner in 2002, and purveyor of a flinty sense of wonder that has resurfaced in comedians such as Terry Saunders, Josie Long and his friend Russell Howard. His new show, The Impotent Rage of the Priveliged, is the latest stage of his push to get outside his own head, a call to shake ourselves up with untrendy ideas such as compassion and empathy.

As ever, though, he gives every impression of finding his head a rather magnificent place to be in. After all, it's made him successful and celebrated. “I am judgmental,” he admits, “and yet also startlingly accurate.” Mock arrogance? Or real arrogance in fancy dress?

He has plenty to be proud of. Kitson has overcome a stutter to become a demon didact. Often the results are joyous: “Children give the world hope,” he says, “and teenagers look at that hope and call it gay.” Other times the results reek of the written word: “It's a remarkable act,” he says of some piece of selective thinking, “of cranial compartmentalisation.”

For all its quotable highlights, though, the show is a splurge. Mugged by teenagers near his home in South London, then later awkwardly coming to the aid of a distressed old woman, Kitson reflects that we must hold firm against the forces of cynicism, our own included. But amid his wise and witty jumble of self-mockery and self-justification, this is a plea for empathy from someone who appears to find empathy a tough ask. “I think certainty does a lot more damage than uncertainty,” he says, with typical certainty.

Those enamoured of Kitson's garrulousness will find plenty to stimulate them in these two hours - too generous a dose for me - of self-reflexive insights. I miss warmth and humility from the onstage Kitson, the very qualities that he is calling for. He has world-class timing, a great comic mind and a formidable beard. But there's something about his manner that feels like instructing rather than sharing.

Next show, tonight, The Stand, Edinburgh (0131 558-7272)

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