Review by Spider and Mike Thorpe of Team Fishcake.

A rather lengthy night at Malarkey's and first up onto the stage was a chap who'd not set foot on a stage for some months, Mark Palmer.

Spider: The length of time away from stage clearly hasn't affected him. A calm, assured performance with some excellent material which raised some important points. The Maxine Carr material in particular was great, with a couple of cracking lines. The audience took a few minutes to get going but it's quite often the case with the first comedian on.

Mike: Excellent material, got plenty of laughs, especially for the first act of the night. His stage presence is still a bit quiet, could do with less 'drink' breaks (he knows that though), but considering he's not done it since November (I think), not bad at all! All that has to be said is DO MORE GIGS!

Next on, making her return to XS Malarkey was London comic Juliet Meyers.

Spider: Some cracking new material from Juliet and she deservedly went down well with the crowd. There was also a bit of nice adlibbing when the Golfing arcade game next to the stage started making funny noises. Probably Juliet's best performance yet at Bar XS.

Mike: I thought she was fantastic; loads of energy, darting from one topic to another. The killer line I remember is when she was talking about being a vegan. I can't remember the exact words but it was something like, "I'm a vegan, but I'm not a very good one. I wear leather shoes... and I own a slaughterhouse."

Next up in the first part of the show was Phil Roman, who just about made it to the gig after getting stuck in traffic in Rusholme.

Spider: Probably the best and most consistent performance I've seen from Phil. The bit at the end about quad-blade razors where he builds up into a paranoid rant about terrorist super-beards was a good way to end his set on a high, earning him a round of applause from the audience. A short but sweet set from Phil.

Mike: Much, MUCH better than I've ever seen him do before. More confident and less - well - boring.

Main support of the night was jug-eared, large-handed funnyman Danny Deegan.

Spider: Danny had some good new material about being on holiday, especially about being arrested in an Malaysian airport for a drunken prank involving a baby and a gun. The bit about his mate Barry keeping porn in a body bag made me laugh especially; I know Barry [Dodds] and I wouldn't put it past him at all to keep porn in a body bag. The only problem was that he overran by a good ten minutes or so. Not normally that much of a problem but I was knackered at the time and wanted an early night! The best bit was impromptu shadow puppetry on a woman's cleavage.

Mike: The best I've ever seen him do as well. Went on for fucking ages, but didn't lose any momentum. Great new material about the baby in the airport. Trying to prove himself as a headliner, methinks.

Headliner of the night was the energetic Adrian Poynton.

Spider: Plenty of audience banter from Adrian accompanied by plenty of material as well, delivered in a high-energy style, which is just as well because by this time the audience were flagging. Did very well but like Danny went on far too long. But then, with the nice audiences at XS Malarkey comics do enjoy performing here so I suppose it's understandable.

Mike: Not bad. Seemed to be very competent in getting laughs. Yes, I said competent. I really honestly don't want to sound like I'm criticising him, because I enjoyed his set, but to be honest, I didn't think he was the best thing ever. I'd be happy to watch him again, but I don't really remember much of his set.

Spider and Mike.