"I wonder if he spunks pearls?"

First up tonight, making her return to Malarkey's, was Shelley Cooper.

Shelley opened with a decent enough line about the fact that she used to be a man: "Well, you've got to have a gimmick in comedy, haven't you?" The rest of the material wasn't too bad, but there wasn't really anything that really prompted laugh out loud moments. Still, there were a few good lines in there, and overall it was a solid enough start to the show.

Second on to the stage, making his debut, was Geordie comic Richie Smooth.

Within seconds of coming on, as soon as the word "masturbation" was mentioned, I sighed and resigned myself to ten minutes of wanking gags. Fair enough, it got laughs, but I don't think there's a subject more hack for a male comic to talk about. It was a shame as he's obviously got potential. He did redeem himself a couple of minutes from the end by switching the subject to soap operas. Overall, a cheeky and likeable stage presence but let down a bit byt choice of material.

Next on, an impromptu appearance by a Malarkey favourite, Des Sharples.

Des had a fair bit of new stuff intermingled with older material, which on the whole worked very well. A couple of gags produced groans but these still got laughs. Des is one of those comics who can make me laugh even though I've heard some of the material dozens of times before. He useda great line (the one in bold at the top) which was something he accidentally came up with whilst we were in the car on the way to a gig in Blackburn, and it was nice to see it get a great laugh.

After the break came the main support of the night, musical comedy act Bobby Dresser.

Bobby opened up with a few gags, and had a spoof club singer style which came across very well. Some of his mannerisms reminded me of Mick Ferry in places - no bad thing. Some of the songs were a little bit hit and miss and the banter between the songs was probably funnier, but the best bits were when he'd take the piss out of songs by taking each line and analysing it somewhat sarcastically. Plays the piano pretty well though.

Headliner of the night was wild and crazy Northern Irish comic Martin Bigpig.

Martin started off in true Bigpig tradition by plenty of bantering with the audience, but there was a bit of topical stuff (David Blaine) as well. One of the best bits of the night was when he had a bit of verbal fun with an old guy in the audience - some might think he went a bit far but I thought it was funny as fuck. Vintage Bigpig.

See you next week.

Spider.