Review coming soon!

Bit of a strange night on Tuesday. Details later. Toby had a night off and guest compere of the night was Jason 'Entertainment' Cooke.

First up onto the stage was local scally lass Lisa McGinnis.

I say "local", Lisa actually started her set in a Cockney accent, for some reason, before lapsing back into 'Salford scally'. She entertained the audience with tales of her scally upbringing, from her job at the Salford Old Folks' Home to being banned from Asda for putting 'Whoops!' stickers on trumpets, as well as some new material as well. The crowd were a bit quiet but there were a few good laughs in there. I think they needed a few more drinks down them. A good set, though. I think Lisa just needs a touch more 'oomph!' when delivering some of the punchlines.

Second on were poetry duo Thick Richard.

Thick Richard's high-paced poetry would be great at a poetry night, with good delivery and fairly powerful lyrics, but unfortunately virtually no humour. Although they did say they weren't actually a comedy act they still seem to perform at comedy venues. They did Mirth on Monday the day before and did exactly the same thing there; brought a load of mates who were silent when they were on and proceeded to talk through everyone else's act (mine included on the Monday). Not only were their mates talking but they were as well, and not even discreetly. If they haven't got respect for other performers by keeping quiet then they can fuck off as far as I'm concerned.

Third on in the first part of the show was Comedy Balloon regular Steve G.

Steve has a habit of pretty much dying at most gigs he does, which is a shame as some of his stuff is very clever. Too clever for most people, unfortunately, hence the quiet ripples of laughter. Although he doesn't really help himself with a slightly lethargic delivery. What makes me laugh about Steve is his perseverence. I was talking to him at the Comedy Balloon and he said he doesn't mind dying, he just enjoys performing on stage. I think he'll become something of a cult figure, our Steve, in a similar way to Richard Swan.

Fourth on, and undoubted star of the night was Adrian Poynton (well, co-star - Jason was on form as compere, and was amusingly pissed by the end - even his guitar sounded pissed!).

Adrian started into his material about how much your internal organs are worth on the black market but went off into several minutes of improvised banter with the impressively pissed Martin who was sat at the front. Brilliant. It was about 7 or 8 minutes before he actually got to his first 'proper' punchline! As well as the banter there was some great observational comedy, in an enthusiastic style. Adrian stormed it, and rightly so.

The other headliner of the night (it was a double headliner, by the way) was Des McLean.

This was when the weirdness started. It was 10:40pm and Des had still not arrived. This was when Toby decided to headline it. Then at 10:45pm in strolls Des. Apparently he fell asleep.

As did the audience later on. I wish Des hadn't bothered to show as I would have enjoyed Toby's vitriol more than Des's lethargic set. The material certainly wasn't headline stuff and the delivery was well below par (I've seen Des before and seen him do much better - but still not headliner level).

But at least Adrian was superb. And Jason was excellent as compere (although slightly drunk).

See you next week.

Spider.