Along the way he became king of the lads: a poster boy for hedonism but with traces of street poet.
The poster for these current live shows, A Room With a Stew, features two oversized quotes: one from the Daily Telegraph calling him "toxic" and another from a Ukip parliamentary candidate describing his routine as "totally evil propaganda… untrue and unfunny".
"I had gone to Ingolstadt and found the factory and I saw a very old faded poster on the wall that someone had left up there," Hegarty says.
Joined by the comedian Ruby Wax, now the poster girl for the benefits of mindfulness to overcome mental health problems, politicians including former ministers Lord Haworth and Jim Fitzpatrick straightened their spines and focused on their breath at the launch of an all party group to explore the potential for mindfulness in health, education, criminal justice.
A poster pinned up nearby advertises a recent public meeting where worried residents were addressed by Network Rail representatives.
According to Neil Crockett, chief executive at the national Digital Catapult, the seaside city is the poster child for the campaign because the whole community is involved in digital innovation.
The company attracted criticism for a poster that suggested betting on the chances of two elderly women crossing a road before being run over by an approaching lorry.
The charms of this land of wheatfields, cork oak forests, wildflower meadows and tiny white-washed villages, are more subtle than in France or Italy's poster regions.
According to the poster, it was an attempt to bring "the street sensation that's sweeping the nation" to the masses, yet the decision to cast really awful non-rapping actor Mario Van Peebles as a really-not-awful rapper proved predictably troublesome.
Yesterday's ruling follows a legal battle in August, where it was agreed that the poster would not be shown in public.
"In this instance it's clear that an error has been made, as the poster should not have been approved for use in our stations," its statement said.
