"Have some seeds..."

An absolute belter of a night on Tuesday with a top quality line up. First on was a debut for London comic Robin Cousins.

Robin's fairly laid back humour went down well with the crowd, with observations and stories about topics as diverse as London, Daleks and self-assessment for tax. The Daleks bit in particular went down well with the crowd when he got them to shout out jobs for Daleks once they'd taken over a planet and he'd come out with a Dalek saying (Accountant? "Calculate! Calculate!"). A couple of the gags were groaners but generally it was a good opening to the show.

Next on, another Malarkey debut, was Adam Bowman.

Adam is relatively new to the comedy scene but I thought his stage presence has improved a lot in a short time. Some of the topics were a bit hack (wanking is good for you, George W Bush) but there was other current events material (Frank Bruno) which was better. The set tailed off a little towards the end which was a bit of a shame as it got off to quite a good start.

Third onto the stage was posh Scouser Ken Bulger.

Ken had one of his best gigs at Malarkey's with a blend of tried and tested material and new stuff as well. His laid back, world-weary, cynical stage presence suits the material down to the ground. Plenty of observational material, anecdotes and great punchlines, all delivered with withering sarcasm. A special bonus point goes to Ken for mentioning the phrase, "Have some seeds...". It's just one of those phrases that makes me laugh but I don't quite know why. Top quality stuff there from Ken.

After the break came an old friend of Toby's who used to gig with him in the early days of their career, Simon Carter. He then gave up comedy and this was his first gig back since coming out retirement.

Simon certainly had confident stage presence but the material, mainly about the inbred village he was brought up in, wasn't that strong to be honest. Quite a few of the gags fell flat on the crowd, but to give him credit, it was his first gig back and Ken Bulger was a pretty tough act to follow. Hopefully Simon will keep on writing material and keep up the gigs.

Main support of the evening was a comic who's stormed it on more than one occasion, Hils Barker.

And this occasion was no different. Hils played the best set yet at Malarkey's and proved to be a real hit with the crowd. She started off with a spoof Sinead O'Connor song, complete with accent, stringing the crowd along for a while before reverting back to her 'real' self. There was a fair bit of new material since last time, quality material too. In fact, she went down so well with the crowd that Toby offered her a headline spot next time she plays. Fantastic stuff, the queen as a prostitute a particular highlight for me.

Headliner of the night was that sick little puppy from Crosby, Silky.

Unfortunately the two-way plug for the mic and Silky's guitar decided to fuck up at that point so he couldn't unveil any of his new songs, which was a bit of a pisser. However, Silky's material more than made up for it. Silky has a way with words and turn of phrase that really makes me envious, for example, "If Southport was a boy he would fuck with his pants on.". He's superb with hecklers and has a twisted sense of humour that had the audience in stitches.

See you next week.

Spider.