We really are very sorry...

Bit of a dodgy night at the Malarkey on Tuesday. Some of the acts didn't perform as well as hoped and the headliner verged on the offensive.

Roland Gent was first up on the milkcrate.

Toby introduced him, as "the comic that booted someone of the stage at the comedy store and then threw a microphone at him so don't heckle him!" Strangely enough, no one did!

Roland was trying out some new material on Tribe Malarkey. Some newspaper headlines and some topical observations. All credit to Roly for his writing exuberance. And most of it was bang on the money.

I'm in two minds about the Queen Mum Tribute Book routine. It was very funny, but it isn't Roly's material and it has been going around on the email for a while now. Perhaps I am being a bit precious, he didn't try to pass it off as his own.

Overall, a very solid performance.

Justin Moorhouse was also trying out some new stuff on Tuesday and it was a bit wide of the mark. And he almost left the stage without a major laugh until a flash of inspiration gave him the inclination to barge back on stage and finish with the "shitting a vertebrae" gag, which gave him something close to the finish he was looking for.

Luke Rasdall was next up. Luke's combination of tall tales and observations struggled on Tuesday. The delivery was confident and clear but the jokes seemed to build and build towards a let down of a punch line. And Luke's "That's not funny material, but it is true" doesn't really cut it. We're not there to listen to truth unless it is funny.

After Luke came the pink-haired angster Will Hodgson. Will did fairly well in front of what seemed to be a difficult audience, but not quite as well as his first gig here on the 7th of May, but that could have been to do with the fact that a lot of the regulars would have seen him already and remember some of the material.

Nonetheless it was good material, delivered with considerable energy and anger.

Jim Thompson was the open spot on Tuesday with his first ever gig. And I've got to say I'm impressed. Okay, the delivery was all over the place and he couldn't remember half the material but when he did get going you could see brilliance in there. The quirky material and likable persona defiantly has promise for the future.

I could make a lot of criticisms, but for a first gig I thought he was fantastic. Once he has learnt how to use a microphone properly and memorised and structured the set, I reckon he'll be brilliant. Hope to see you again Jim.

Scot's lass Susanne Fraser filled the main support slot.

Susanne is an experienced comic that has regularly compered the Gilded Balloon in her native Scotland. This didn't really show through and she failed to get the crowd going at all. The Scottish material was lost on the Manchester audience and the rest of the set got a quiet response. At one point a heckle from the audience got a bigger laugh than her gags.

Self-titled "New York Bad Boy" Artie Fletcher was the headliner on Tuesday. I don't know whether there is problem in translating the American-style stand up for a British audience, but I thought his set was verging on racist and homophobic. There were a lot of unnecessary references in there thinly wrapped in some sub standard gags. In fact I found it so bad that I can't be arsed writing anymore about him.

I apologise for the brief review this week but sometimes it's best not to dwell!

See you next week, I hope!

Lee.