Jason had his usual guitar problems, but eventually ran through the brilliant new tune She Never Buys Me Penguins. [Actually, that's something of an old classic from the Scruffy Murphy days... - Spider] And congratulations to Jason and the lads on the world record.

Ben Schofield was first at XS on Tuesday. Ben was pleased to be in Manchester because it got him out of the hellhole that is Bradford for the night. Pleased to oblige you fella. And nice one for making us remember the genius of the old Fry's Turkish Delight adverts.

Ben had an impressive debut at the award-winning venue. He delivered some quality material in an energetic and animated fashion. I'm looking forward to more from Ben.

Next up was the mad Scotsman, Alan Anderson.

Ladies' man Alan, gave a good solid performance at the Malarkey, and just as he was really winning the audience over he insulted a couple sat at the front, so badly that they left. Perhaps leave that one out next time Alan?

After a brilliant rendition of David Hasselhoff's Hair from the record-breaking compere, the Malarkey crowd was treated to Louis Martin.

Louie is a supply teacher when he's not doing stand up, and one day he asked one of his pupils for a sick note. The boy handed him a note that read, "I want to chop off your balls and boil your head". "Not that kind of sick note!" he replied.

Louis had a brilliant debut at Bar XS. His combination of school tales and banter with the crowd had tribe Malarkey in stitches.

Just before the break the crowd was treated to the unique 80's electro pop experience that is Starbase 109. Starbase's Kraftwerk-esque performance was a delight to watch and was received a brilliant reception from the punters on Tuesday. The musical duo are mad as a porridge fork but funny as fuck.

After the break, Malarkey regular Dominic Woodward made a welcome return to XS Malarkey.

Ashley Peacock soundalike Dominic, just gets better and better every time I see him. The delivery and dynamic of the set goes from strength to strength and the routine about his martial arts friend that blocks lampposts made me piss.

Dominic puts his all into a performance and is destined for great things.

The headliner for Tuesday's comedy marathon was Des McClean.

The Scotsman struggled on Tuesday, due partly to his material and partly due to a tired crowd. Tuesday suffered a little at the end, as there were too many quality acts for the one night, and the crowd's attention span wasn't up to it. But that's what you get for giving away free Budweiser!

Act of the night had to be the truly bizarre Starbase 109 and well done to Jason for working his bollox off too.

See you next week.

Lee.