"Nothing to be afraid of, it's your trusty wheelbarrow. But STOP! Look! Think! Is it as trustworthy as you first think? Well yes, it probably is. It's a wheelbarrow, there's nothing much more to it."

Father Juan Kossov A double headliner tonight and kicking off the humour tonight was Malarkey veteran Jason 'Entertainment' Cooke as Father Juan Kossov.

I like Father Juan but it took a few minutes for the audience to start to warm up, but once they did the laughs started to come out - especially with the appearance of The Little Baby Jesus (well, a doll), with Jason doing Jesus' voice and answering questions from the audience. There was a cracking lullaby he sang Baby Jesus to sleep with: "Go to sleep, sweet Jesus; Have some lovely dreams; And when you wake in the morning; I hope you don't get nailed to a cross." Iain Woodrow Fantastic. The only down point was the song that Jason ended with - there weren't any punchlines in it at all and would have sounded a lot better had he brought his guitar. Oh well.

Second onto the stage was ginger fundamentalist Iain Woodrow.

The first part of Iain's material was about being ginger - okay, not the most original subject (if you are a ginger comic) but there were one or two nice ideas in there. There were also 'alternative' nursery rhymes scattered about the set which were met with varying degrees of Ken Mustard laughter. There was also material about being married (and stalking his own wife). The crowd looked a bit uncomfortable at times but there were ripples of laughter. I think this is more down to delivery than material - I've heard Iain doing some cracking material before now. He should improve a lot if he can control the nerves on stage.

Third onto the Malarkey stage was Skipton-based Ken Mustard.

Character act Ken (aka Tom Read) is one of my current favourite comics, a comic where anything can Ken Mustard happen on stage. Tonight Ken gave a lecture on the history and maintenance of wheelbarrows. A particular highlight was when he was explaining the different parts of the wheelbarrow: "This bit here, the central plinth at the front, that's known as the Shania. This piece here, the undercarriage, that's also known as the Heron's Revenge, and this piece here, the central enclave, that's known as the Bummer's Crevice." Excellent. Anyone who can introduce the words 'plinth', 'heron', 'crevice', 'enclave' and a bumming reference gets my vote. Ken then went on to do some truly superb 'freestyle wheelbarrow' (in which he accidentally crushed a squirrel Ken Mustard freestyles with his wheelbarrow... with biscuits sellotaped to its back). His humour takes a nod in the direction of Reeves and Mortimer, but in Ken's own unique style. Most importantly of all it's as funny as fuck, and the XS Malarkey audience agreed. If any of you reading this are up in Edinburgh for the festival this year, Ken (and myself amongst others) will be appearing in The Great Big Comedy Picnic at the Pod Deco. I for one can't wait for that.

Mundo Jazz The first of the headliners onto the stage after the break was South American musician Mundo Jazz, making his XS Malarkey debut.

Mundo came onto the stage and immediately started some good banter with the audience. This probably went on for about five minutes before he started on his first song, specially written about Fallowfield. Then followed plenty of digging-myself-into-a-hole style banter and a lesson in how to make guitar chords indicate different moods (it was funnier than it sounds). He ended on a great song about different coloured 'froo-its' and went off to a huge round of applause.

Rob Deering Second headliner of the night, making his return to Malarkey, was cheeky chappie Rob Deering.

Tonight Rob did equally as well as he did last time (very well), and got a huge laugh early on with the Queen Mother visual gag. Then he got out his guitar and took some Beatles requests (all of which morphed into Oasis songs), and he did a particularly good Ringo Starr impression. The James Bond songs went down very well this time, as they did last time. And not a bad Morten Harket impression either. Overall, a very slick, professional set from Rob.

Spider.