We won an award you know...

We did.

Slightly subdued start to Tuesday. Toby was working his bollox off to get the crowd going. I don’t think that’ll be such a problem when we get the free Budweiser though!

The results of the Chortle comedy awards were announced on Tuesday and XS Malarkey was named the "best comedy venue in the north of England". Not bad eh? And the lovely Sarah got Toby a bottle of champers to celebrate!

First up at the award winning venue was probably the most glamorous act we’ve seen at the Malarkey, Steph Davies. Apart from Toby of course. ["Every room" you told me... - Spider]

The lads in the audience were conspicuously quiet as Steph launched into her 'condom sizes' material, bikini line waxing, and replacing men with vibrators. "Well to be quite frank sweetheart, you’ve only got one speed. This is multi-speed, it rotates, vibrates and it doesn’t premature ejaculate."

Tuesday was only Steph’s second stand-up gig and she is showing a lot of promise. A little nervy in her delivery but that will obviously improve with more stage time. The material is good quality even if it does embarrass the lads a bit. Bunch of prudes! Nice one, Steph.

Next up at the best comedy venue in the north was a comic simply known as Clive. Rolf Harris soundalike Clive had some interesting theories on the timing of conception and its connection to intelligence. And he has combined Christianity, Judaism and Atheism to create his own super religion. He goes to church on Saturday but he doesn’t believe a word of it.

'Clive' AKA Simon Brodkin, struggled on the Malarkey milk-crate with his new character. Mainly due to his material. There were a few good gags in there but not enough. Back to the drawing board on that one I fear.

Third on at the prize winning XS Malarkey was Welshman Daniel Cassiel. Dan was at the club on Tuesday to warn us "the Welsh are revolting"! They are going to retake their ancestral homelands by unremitting pessimism and giving people dirty looks.

And apparently Geri, in Welsh, is translated as vomit. Makes sense to me.

Dan had a solid debut at the new venue. He delivered some decent gags and some naff puns confidently. And almost managed to make a fifteen-minute set about being welsh without mentioning sheep. Almost.

After the break the best club in the north of England was treated to Calamity Jason 'entertainment' Cooke. Jason chaotic set revolved around his magical Melodica and guitar, both of which were fucked! But the ever-improving Jason carried off a fantastic energy fuelled set with a mixture of quality puns, hilarious poems, and dodgy Eric Cartman impressions. And third time lucky for the melodica and the dyslexic aliens.

Jason struggles with his Melodica...

...then decides enough is enough.

The tumbleweed crept in every now and then due to Jason scrambling to remember material, but for the most part an entertaining, if haphazard, set.

After the chips and cocktail sausages, we had the rare treat of the mighty Craig Campbell. Canadian superstar Craig is simply a brilliant comic. Craig could do an entire set based around a bar of soap. He just doesn’t need a routine as such. Name a topic, he’ll tell you something funny about it, and then something else, and then something else. And it just gets funnier.

Craig’s delivery is manic to say the least. Lots of screaming and shouting. He simply didn’t need the microphone; his frantic delivery was more than capable of filling the award-winning venue with his voice.

Craig is the canine’s cumbags. Nuff said.

The night was a cracker and Toby, quite rightly, couldn’t be arsed ending on a downer with your appalling limericks and jokes. So save all your John Thaw material for next week.

Jason 'entertainment' Cooke is going to be compering for a while as Toby’s off doing A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Royal Exchange so it’s gonna be an interesting few weeks. More Melodica, Jason, please!!

See you all next week at the officially the best comedy venue in the north of England. Did I mention we won an award?

Lee.