Special needs boy...

First onto the stage tonight was Wayne Dawber.

I first saw Wayne a few years ago at Murphy's Malarkey and he was - well - awful. Thankfully he was much better with plenty of observations, some better than others. You can tell he's obviously inspired by Peter Kay. Some of his observations and turns of phrase were quite good but I don't really think you can base your entire act on "Curly Wurlies - remember them?" Still, a massive improvement on last time. However, the set was too long at almost 17 minutes.

Next on was the decidely strange David Critchley.

The reason David's on-stage persona was quite disturbing was because, according to him, he looks a bit of a freak in real life. This was David's first ever gig and he was surprisingly confident on stage. The material was quite strange in parts, but I think this added to the humour. The bit about what would animals that don't make noises sound like if they did make noises was quality. So all in all a pretty good debut - the humour takes some getting used to but there's potential there I think.

Third onto the Malarkey stage was a Malarkey debut for Phil Buckley.

Phil didn't do too badly but some of the gags were met with discreet murmers rather than genuine laughter. I think the material in general needs improving and the delivery quite often stumbled. Also there was the "oh, come on, that deserved a laugh" factor involved, rather than just getting on with things if a joke fell flat. He didn't die a death by any means, but was on the critical list...

First on after the break was second ginger of the night, Ian Woodrow.

Ian's set seemed to take a few minutes to really get going and he seemed to struggle quite a lot, which was a shame, as his presentation was pretty good and he had some quite nice ideas, but the audience just seemed a bit subdued. Shame really. Can't quite put my finger on what went wrong, but sometimes these things happen. Oh well. It was apparently his first time on stage so it was a pretty impressive debut and worth persevering.

Main support came from Malarkey stalwart Dominic Woodward.

Dom did the usual set I've heard a million times before, but it's still good. Scallies, the Salford Space Programme, students and bread, girlfriend-based sarcasm and lads trying to dance all made an appearance. Dom's delivery was flawless as usual - but get writing some new material Dom, I know your set inside out!

Headliner of the night, making his Malarkey debut was character act Ray Peacock.

I'm not entirely sure what character Ray was meant to be but he seemed to be dressed as some kind of butcher/farmer combo with a no-nonsense attitude. To be honest he could have dressed in anything and it would have still been funny. Ray is not someone you want to heckle as he has absolutely no qualms in putting you down. In fact, within a minute of him taking to the stage he'd already singled out one of the regulars as a special needs case!

Putdowns aside, his material is excellent; a superb quality of ranting which you just can't help laughing at. His Saddam Hussein impression had me rolling about. Fantastic stuff.

See you next week.

Spider.