WILLIAM BURROUGHS once dubbed the American cult mover maker John Walters The Pope of Trash – a compliment in itself for someone who has courted controversy all his life.

Hammersmith Apollo, Queen Caroline Street, W6

WILLIAM BURROUGHS once dubbed the American cult mover maker John Walters "The Pope of Trash" - a compliment in itself for someone who has courted controversy all his life.

Film maker, actor, writer and visual artist, Walters assaults on "common decency", a turn of phrase that means different things to different people, is legendary.

As one person in the audience put it, "Icon of bad taste, John Walters plays a kindly uncle to tomorrow's delinquents in his funny one-man show". Too true!

Urbane and compassionate in his delivery, Walters is someone that has a wonderfully infectious humour that shocks and makes you scream with laughter and incredulity at the same time.

Nothing is sacred and nothing is swept under the carpet. Walters' pokes fun, in very large doses, at the sensibilities of American society in particular, and at the world in general.

Walters' one-man show certainly isn't stand-up comedy in the true sense of the word. He also makes his audience aware that it isn't "a lecture in bad taste" - rather he sees it as a vaudeville act pushing the boundaries and taking his audiences with him.

His childhood years in Baltimore, his early friendship with Divine, his first homosexual encounters, early attempts at underground movies and the first brushes with the law are all catalogued.

And at the end, the lights go up for a question and answer session that has his plethora of fans dying to ask this quirkiest and funniest of characters any number of questions.

If Walters comes back to London to do another show, this is a must-see. An absolute hoot - just don't take your parents. - DALE MAITLAND CARTWRIGHT