"Greg wears a leather jacket."

A strong line-up tonight, and first onto the stage was a newcomer to Malarkey's, Leon Osman.

Leon's humour ranged from working-class tales about his girlfriend to Don't-Parents-Say-Wacky-Things type material (which had a whiff of Billy Connolly about it). There were a few attempted shock moments (wanking off to Pauline Fowler, for example) but there wasn't the essential cheeky humour that would let you get away with it. For the most part the set got a decent amount of laughs, and it was a large improvement on his set at the Frog & Bucket the night before.

Second onto the Malarkey stage was North East comedian John Cooper.

Frodo Baggins lookalike John started his set in silence, trying to articulate his opening line. When it was delivered it was met with a great reaction by the crowd, the tag line getting an even better laugh, largely helped by the excellent timing. There were a few gags in there which got a pleasing combination of groans and laughter. John has some great material coupled with excellent delivery, and he's capable of banter should the opportunity present itself. Good work.

Third up was Ben Traynor with a new comedy character; the utterly charmless office boy, Stephen Challis.

Ben/Stephen was quite simply brilliant and probably the best act of the night. It was all in the timing. He read extracts from his diary (mainly about his job in an office) and made the image of an utterly charmless dullard really quite convincing. The phrasiology was also excellent and really contributed to the set: "It was my turn to buy snacks from the shop. People mainly wanted sandwiches and crisps and other treats of that ilk." It's not really an act I can describe and do it justice so the only thing I can recommend is to see it for yourself.

Main support of the evening was Walsall-based cheeky chappie, Dan Smith.

Dan had a fair bit of new material from last time, which is always a good thing, including the slightly bizarre hypothetical situation of replacing offensive swearwords with Enya. Most of it hit the mark but a few things should have got a bigger response from the audience. There was a brilliant Richard and Judy gag which really got a disgusted groan from the crowd (but the laugh was there as well, albeit a guilty one). Dan worked hard but I don't think it was his best Malarkey gig. Still a decent performance though.

Headliner of the night was Toby's favourite act of all time, the truly fantastic Robin Ince.

Robin started with a bit of polical satire (including some great anti-Thatcher gags), and a superb Ron Atkinson gag as well. He fired out gags and observations at a rapid rate and the audience loved it. Some of his humour is delightfully sick and twisted - my favourite kind! A flawless performance with cutting material that raises points as well as laughs, with some excellent banter with the crowd as well.

Spider.