"Huge novelty microphone."

This Tuesday we had two acts who were regulars on the Chortle forums, all the way from sunny Preston. First up was Bethany.

Bethany's set consisted of material ranging from her being a lesbian to torturing gimps (which included a great line about torturing him by constantly moving his pint just out of reach), and a fairly gruesome story about an unfortunately-inserted mobile phone. A ten minute set which was warmly received by the audience.

Second on was Bethany's mate Andrew Dennis - or as he called himself, George Clooney's ugly sister.

I was talking to Andrew before the gig and he said he was shitting himself, but he didn't show it on stage. A calmly delivered set with a line about why bride's smile when walking to the altar which made Toby piss himself ("Andrew Dennis should be canonised for that line."). The only weak point of the set was the bit about posters in men's bogs which went on a little bit long, but the rest of the set more than made up for it, especially the bit about orange women on perfume counters being carved from solid carrot. Class.

Next up was the man with the smallest hands in comedy, Dave Ingram.

Cheeky young scamp Dave bounded onto the stage and delighted the audience with his youthful energy combined with some great material. From crap pranks by his dad and uncle (entering Steven Hawking on Robot Wars) to voice activated mobile phones, Dave fairly stormed the gig. Quite possibly act of the night for me. The bit near the end about Fair Trade Christmas Crackers was great: "Dad, what's your fact?" "8,000 people a day die of AIDS." Heh!

Next on after Dave came Mike Landers.

Mike's obviously been writing quite a lot of new material since he last made an appearance at Malarkey's. There were a ton of one-liners, most of them excellent quality, and some other observational bits and bobs, including topical stuff (vote Arnie, Frank Bruno, etc.) His laid-back, slightly deadpan delivery suits the one-liner stuff but it was good to have them intermingled with other material. Hmm - a dead heat in the act of the night with Dave, I think.

Next on was affable Warrington comic Bill Woolland.

Bill was the second comic of the night to have been writing new material - he's one of the most prolific comics I can think of, actually. But as well as the new material there was a healthy smattering of banter with the crowd. Together with delivery that makes all this comedy lark seem effortless it was a great set from Bill (despite him being ill).

Headliner of the night, making his debut at XS Malarkey was Phil "Son of Roy" Walker.

Sad to say it but much of Phil's set appeared to be 'borrowed' from a variety of other comics. Indeed, the first gag ("What time is it, quarter to eleven? Just think, Frank Bruno's been in bed six hours.") was surely based on Archie Kelly's gag involving Geoffrey Archer (and he's not even in prison anymore - that's how old it is). Danny Deegan and I had a count of 'borrowed' gags - we got to about 14 in less than ten minutes (including naming the comic it was nicked from). The general style was a bit patronising/insulting in a more mainstream style - not my cup of tea at all. There were a few bright spots but just not enough. The old "calm down, calm down" Scouser impression was unforgiveable. Check out Toby's reaction to a well-used gag:

See you next week.

Spider.