Chelsea Handler, London Palladium

Chelsea Handler may be an unknown name for many in Britain - although some will know her from her spat with Piers Morgan on his now-cancelled US chat show -  but there were plenty of fans at the London Palladium to watch the actress, comic and chat show host making her UK stand-up debut, with a one-off show based on her travelogue of a trip to Africa with some friends, Uganda Be Kidding Me.

In typical American stand-up style, the show was only an hour long, and she didn't deviate from the script to riff on local subjects or engage with the audience. When a fan called out for “the kayak story”, it was batted away with a withering “Honey this show isn't interactive. Sit tight” before Handler picked up where she left off, without missing a beat. Really, the producer of Just a Minute on Radio 4 could have a US comics version, 60 minutes without repetition, deviation or hesitation.

Fortunately, much of the material was worth our trip, even if Handler, like so many US comics before her, didn't bother doing any research about British tastes or boundaries. Talking about picking up the bill for her African trip for the bunch of mates who joined her, she said: “I'm not Jewish about these things.” There was an audible intake of breath, and it was some time into the show before Handler mentioned she was Jewish herself.

But offence, delivered with an ultra-dry panache – she called the audience “fucking cunts” within a few minutes of starting her set - is Handler's stock in trade. There were several moments in the show when even her keenest fans didn't know whether to laugh or groan, such as when she appeared to conflate being Ugandan with having Aids, or when she asked: “Are there any black people in? Smile so I can see you.”

She is an ebullient comic - although I felt no real warmth emanating from her - and Handler strode the wide Palladium stage with confidence while delivering a tightly written set with some nicely timed callbacks; she talked about hanging with her lesbian flatmate, being a dog owner, the power of female friendship and her cool-sounding dad, who sent her a filthy photograph on St Valentine's Day, which she showed on the huge on-stage screen behind her, where we had previously seen an extensive album of photographs of the comic before she came on stage.

The kayak gag – a shaggy dog story about an acute bout of food poisoning that struck her while she was holidaying on a Caribbean beach – took several minutes to tell but was perfectly timed and delivered. And with that she was off stage, no encore, lights up, done and dusted in the hour.