My, doesn't Nick Griffin sweat a lot? Many of us had feared that last night's edition of Question Time would become an unofficial party political broadcast for the British National Party.
Our fears were unfounded as its leader stumbled, sweated and visibly shook his way through a series of contradictions and attempts to avoid answering the questions.
And yet it had all started so positively for Griffin as he marched through the back entrance of the Shepherds Bush studios to avoid the protesters waiting at the front.
Even the BBC's website got in on the act late afternoon with its Breaking News banner carrying the message that BNP leader Nick Griffin was inside the studios. I trust there was not a similar one, Elvis-style, when he left the building.
Talk about overdoing it. Auntie, as Griffin prefers not to call the BBC, was treating the process like a military manoeuvre: Operation Neanderthal if you like. I half-expected to see a report from Jeremy Bowen, embedded in Griffin's battalion.
The programme, contrary to expectations, showed Griffin for what he is. All those attempts in recent years to apply a veneer over the BNP's policies were exposed.
He couldn't resist a chuckle about the Holocaust (he denied he was a denier, by the way); and his attempt at an anthropological explanation of the UK's ethnicity was debunked by playwright Bonnie Greer, whose position was that the original inhabitants of these islands were Neanderthals. I wonder how far back Griffin can trace his ancestry.
It was Greer, who is black, who sat next to Griffin on the panel. I wonder whether she and her fellow members had drawn lots for this slice of bad luck.
Inevitably, a question about immigration was asked and, sadly, justice secretary Jack Straw was every bit as evasive as Griffin. Straw could have pointed to figures showing that emigration from the UK could prove to be a bigger problem than immigration, but even Labour is cagey on this subject these days.
Best moment of the programme? It came early on after a question about the BNP's constitution which will have to be changed to allow people from ethnic minorities to join the party.
Greer looked mischievous as she said with a sense of foreboding: "If I were a BNP member, I would be very worried."
Griffin, already sweating and shaking, laughed in his screwed-up face way and clapped his hands like a performing seal.
The circus was under way.
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