Often credited as one of the most naturally gifted performers in late night television, ‘Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop’ is a reminder that its bouffant star is often funnier without a script than he is with. The documentary, filmed over the course of last summer’s 32 date ‘Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television’ tour, contrasts a wanting stage show (“I know you have fun doing ‘Rock This Town’, Conan, but at whose expense?” asks a writer), with the behind-the-scenes mania that makes it all possible. If the perception of this being a thinly disguised puff-piece are largely accurate – anything more salacious than prickly drama is curiously absent – then it still paints an intriguing portrait of a man who doesn’t know how to stop.

Having performed for nearly two hours in the swelting heat, Conan’s pale features sag as he collapses onto a sofa backstage. Exhausted, he complains to his producer about the overstuffed schedule, before stealing himself for the latest meet-and-greet that he at once laments and encourages. Several hours pass before the last of them leave, and he snaps angrily at his staff. “You know what I want to do? Not talk to 100 people after the show. Not have each [backing singer] bring in 35 people. I’d like somebody to help me”. Later, at New York’s prestigious Radio City, an assistant points to some fans lining the sidewalk outside, only to find her boss already bounding towards them without invite or obligation. Much as his reflexive need to please is both desperate and endearing, anyone who watches him smile obligingly as fans awkwardly arranging themselves for photos will be hard pushed to suggest he lacks the personal touch.

The story of how ‘Coco’ came to travel from Eugene to Atlanta in a tour bus is one of impetuous executives running their cut-throat business into the ground. Having waited five years for his shot at succeeding his hero Johnny Carson as the host of The Tonight Show, Conan’s tenure was brought to a close just 8 months later, the shameful result of underwhelming ratings and protracted negotiations (which, infuriatingly, the documentary gives little insight to). He subsequently left the network – with a reported $42 million payoff – and Conan’s undiminished anger towards NBC and rival host Jay Leno is a recurring theme. Passing time after a show, he imagines receiving a letter from Leno, relishing an apology that concludes “How does it feel to have a soul?”.

The chief failing of ‘Can’t Stop’ is that it offers nothing new. Documentaries are at their best when they inadvertently undermine their subjects, as with the 1970 concert film ‘Gimme Shelter’, or the childlike narcissism of Metallica’s Some Kind of Monster. Despite rumours of this being a similarly dark revelation, Conan is depicted in glowing, resolutely human, tones: a smart, switched-on comic whose only crime appears to be an habitually dominaneering personality. Of his at-times overbearing tone (noticably during a blustering encounter with 30 Rock’s Jack McBrayer), he reflects that “they’re little jokes with quotation marks around them”. In the background, his wife noisly prepares dinner. “Wanna oil that?” he snorts. “Yeah, that’s an example. That’s me letting her know“.

Accusing O’Brien of genuine bullying is to mischaracterise the casual oneupsmanship inherent to comedy. Even his fiercest critics are unlikely to argue with the him being summarised as a basically good guy who can go too far trying to please all the people all the time. Critically, the boundless energy that gets him in trouble also keeps things moving during a middle third that would have scuppered more ernest profiles, weighed down as it is by incidental celebrity encounters at interchangable tour dates. Conan has a remarkable gift for anarchic screwball, and his talents are duly highlighted by a documentary that shrewdly focuses on candid moments of vaudeville improvisation, rather than that other most sterile of offerings, favoured by touring acts everywhere: the Official Live DVD.

80 minutes is time enough to prove the comic pays little notice to distinctions between the stage and the street. His constant need for approval is at once troubling, yet no doubt utterly in keeping with his peers. As his jet climbs into the night sky on its way to the next stop of the tour, he stretches out his long legs before rattling off a showcase of free-assocating hammy accents to a crew who yearn to sleep. For Conan O’Brien, the world is his stage and we are his audience – whether we like it or not.