It is not often that comedy critics are a united bunch, but Chris Rock's UK shows this week have pretty much got across-the-board positive reviews. The only real dissenting voice was blogger Ian Winwood in The Guardian, who complained that Rock did not tailor his show to a UK audience. I personally thought Rock did a pretty good job at adjusting his act. He explained who Seabiscuit was and made references to Beckham, Frank Bruno and darts ("you think that's a sport? You are setting the bar way too low"). Given that a large chunk of his act was about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton what was he supposed to do, swap their names for Gordon Brown and Cherie Blair? The only reference that foxed me was the one about US baseball* player Barry Bonds taking steroids. The original story might have passed me by in south London, but not knowing this hardly ruined a powerhouse performance.

On the subject of comedy getting lost in translation it has come to my attention that Ricky Gervais made sure he covered all of his bases with the Extras Christmas Special. Some of the references were so specifically British that Gervais altered the names for the American HBO broadcast. Jade Goody ("over here she's like the Queen" explains Gervais on his website) was changed to Kramer – the actor Michael Richards who played Kramer in Seinfeld has also been involved in a racism row. Kate Adie became US news anchor Katie Couric. In a previous episode Billie Piper became Halle Berry, which almost sounds the same if you are a little hard of hearing.

Eddie Izzard once avoided the problem by performing in French when in France, but maybe Eddie missed a trick. It can be highly productive when comedians stick to their own language but are aware of linguistic differences. In the old days a visiting US stand-up could get a good five minutes out of the fact that pants means trousers in America and underpants over here. And recently Australian comics have got plenty of mileage out of the fact that thongs in Australia are flip flops. Did you here the one about the man who asked his girlfriend if he could wear her thong as he was just popping out to the shops?

*For those of you who kindly corrected me when I wrote above that Barry Bonds was a football player, I had originally written baseball player, but edited my copy last night when Rock referred to him as a football player on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross. I don't know whether this was a wind-up or a jet-lagged slip, but Rock definitely calls Bonds a football player three minutes into this clip here. I have now changed it back to baseball again.