I AM — in the interests of research, of course — eating a steak and kidney pie. It is not just any pie. It is a “luxury pie“ and, with a few formerly frozen French fries, it has cost me £3.50. Needless to say, it is no more a “luxury” pie than Mr Byrite is a “luxury” clothes emporium, but, claggy crust notwithstanding, it is edible.

Welcome to the Circus Tavern, Purfleet, and the Ladbrokes.com Professional Darts Corporation World Darts Championship, which is not to be confused with the distinctly inferior Professional Darts Championship, which begins in Frimley Green on Saturday.

Not only does the Circus Tavern sell “luxury” pies, but the Lush Lounge upstairs offers whatever “American-style lap-dancing” is. Alternatively, those with more pugilistic tastes passing by on February 25 might enjoy the cage fighting.

Darts has its market and its market is rowdy but friendly. Almost everyone is heroically, unashamedly drunk and the warning that “the PDC wants everyone to enjoy themselves, but overstep the mark and you will be asked to leave” is routinely ignored, of course.

A more moot point is what, short of lobbing a few darts of their own, the audience would have to do to be defenestrated. With many in fancy dress — Snow White was undeniably fetching, the dwarfs with her less so — they shout, chant, place their bets, mutter among themselves and clap along with an enthusiasm eclipsed only by its lack of rhythmic co-ordination. Between sets, as the players take a break, they dance on tables, flash bellies at the Sky cameras and tuck into more pies, more beer and more cigarettes. In short, they are having a whale of a time.

Those who sneer at darts may have a point. It’s a pub sport and it’s cheap television, hence it drenching Sky’s schedules. Moreover, it’s hardly marathon running; in fact it’s hardly light jogging, but these men compete in a seething, dank-smelling, starkly-lit cauldron of bacchanalia. It’s medieval jousting with Budweiser instead of mead and triple 20s instead of a spear through the kidneys. The players sweat profusely and not merely because of beer guts untrammelled by the spoilsport banning of drinking and smoking at the oche. “It’s 120 degrees down there,” gasps a PDC official, exaggerating, but not excessively.

Not that Phil “The Power” Taylor should care. The Circus Tavern is his stage and he, as ever, is Laurence Olivier as Hamlet. Aside from an aberration in 2003, he has won this tournament every year since 1995. This year, the man from Stoke-on-Trent began the 64-man tournament as 6-4 on favourite. Taylor’s progress towards the £100,000 winner’s cheque has been stately. Before last night’s semi-final with Andy “Hammer” Hamilton, he had dispatched the unaccountably nickname-free Austrian, Anton Pein, Irishman Mick “The Magnet” McGowan and compatriots Chris “Mace The Ace” Mason and Darren “The Sniper” Webster, losing only two sets out of 18.

Taylor had, though, lost a little of his customary sang-froid along the way after Mason described him as “pathetic” for buying a Bentley: “I am driving around in a nine-year-old car and he is rubbing my nose into it.” To the delight of Sky, who have broadcast every dart thrown in this one-horse race, Mason invited Taylor into the car park to settle their differences. With a royal shake of his chins, Taylor declined to turn a pub sport into a pub brawl.

Even so, short of ordering Taylor to throw left-handed, ultimate victory seems assured. Still, the PDC have done their best to make a game of it, enticing Dutchman Raymond “Barney” Van Barneveld, the jewel of the Professional Darts Championship, to defect. On Friday both men cruised through their quarter-finals.

Van Barneveld was egged on by the ever-cheery “Barney Army”, who mostly wore orange, occasionally dressed as Barney Rubble and spoke reverentially of their hero. Afterwards, dripping with sweat, Van Barneveld entered the press area. He seemed like a nice bloke. He said: “I’d expected a harder game”; that he has turned to meditation to quell his nerves and that his game has assumed another level since he changed flights. And how much did those career-changing flights cost? “Oh, one quid. That’s all.”

After Van Barneveld came Taylor. Once, his unassuming manner and effortless geniality helped make him the universally popular King Of Darts, but even before Mason’s goading, there were suggestions of barbarians approaching the palace gates. Taylor had threatened to quit rather than grapple in literal or metaphorical wrestling, but being too good for his sport is beginning to take its toll on Taylor and his covetous court. The Bentley business was more a warning shot before darts discovers how many clothes the emperor is wearing.

“People are jealous of Phil,” explained Sue, wearing a Taylor replica darts shirt. “But he’s the best and people always snipe at class, especially those who aren’t good enough. And he‘s a top role model.”

Such was the dominance of Taylor and Van Barneveld that Friday’s quarter-finals finished more than an hour ahead of schedule. Most of the crowd carried on drinking, but shortly after Taylor had been whisked away in a chauffeur-driven car (not, it must be noted, a Bentley), Captain America, Flash and a legion of slightly bedraggled superheroes staggered towards the bright lights of Purfleet.