"I'm a Horlicksholic, a colicholic and a follicleholic..."

Fuck me, what a top night! You missed out on a belter there, Lee (and other Edinboro, Scotchland-based people).

First up in the traditionally hardest part of the show was Dominic Woodward, trying out some new material. The 'traditionally hardest' part didn't matter as Dom warmed the crowd instantly with his enthusiasm and great new material.

There was only really one joke in the entire set that fell flat but it came across to me as more of a point to make than a joke. So we'll ignore that one. The rest of it was good, some bits better than others, the highlight for me probably being the bit about George Harrison trying to confuse his attacker.

So a great set from Dom who wasn't sure about his new material but should be assured that it's a winner.

Next on was a mightily impressive debut from Hils Barker who happened to be in the area. Extra comic - bonus!

Hils opened up with an excellent piss-take of Daily Mail letter writers which is guaranteed to endear her to almost any crowd. Especially Toby. That was followed by more piss-taking, this time at the expense of the Swiss and their attitude to illegal immigrants, and, of course, the easiest target of them all - George Dubya Bush. Okay, easy target, but the material was original and clever.

After more decent material came the undoubted highlight where she donned her guitar and gave us a few songs; a vinyl record at the wrong speed, and a rendition of a song in the stereotypical Spanish style, but with English lyrics - doesn't sound impressive but it was far, far funnier than I can explain here. Great stuff. Probably best comic of the night, although it was a close thing as everyone did well.

Third up was a Malarkey debut Julian Daniel.

Julian showed few nerves at first but soon got more confident on stage and gave some good material. He started off with Commonwealth games material, which seems to be flavour of the month amongst most comics lately, but had some original gags there.

I'm not sure how often Julian does gigs (Toby told him to get of his arse and do more) but he's got some good, solid material which, when combined with a touch more confidence, can be a surefire winner.

After Julian came showbiz leg-end, the immaculately dressed singing Vietnam vet Peter Pitzburg.

Peter, from Las Vegas but with an accent that sounds uncannily Boltonian, came on in typical showbiz style to that Elvis remix that's currently doing the rounds, and immediately launched into a savage attack of Neil Diamond for "nicking his songs" whilst serving in Vietnam. Even stranger is the fact that Peter claims to have once been a porn star...

Peter got plenty of laughs on Tuesday, mainly due to the sheer rediculousness of the character. I think it works quite well though. Perhaps not quite headliner material but not far off.

Last but not least was Tony 'Paleface' Hendricks all the way from sunny Jamaica. Well, Brixton actually, but he is originally from Jamaica.

Much of Tony's set is based on this fact, and the fact that he doesn't look like what most people perceive as a 'typical' Jamaican (i.e., he's white, with not a dreadlock in sight). There are, however, plenty of gags in there and there's enough material to keep the set coasting along nicely. In fact, it was a reasonably long set, somewhere around the 45 minute mark.

Tony went down well enough with the crowd to be called back for an encore, which turned out to be one of the shortest in history! Still, it was getting late and he'd more than earned his wages.

See you after the two week break (back on the 27th).

Spider.