"I had this woman eat my arse once, she's living in a clay house now."

An absolutely belting night tonight, one of the best of the year, and kicking off proceedings and making his return to XS Malarkey was London-based misanthrope of mirth Anthony Miller.

Anthony started in a deliberately slightly haphazard way, leading into material about being on the dole, and a fairly groanworthy crane driver gag. One bit that made me chuckle - and feel free to call me childish - was the bit about cycling killing sperm, and you can test this by hitting yourself in the testicles with a hammer to see if you accelerate: ("Obviously, don't try it if you're a woman, you'll just get a flat fanny."). There was a fair amount of decent material, but with a couple of punchlines that didn't quite set the room alight. On the whole, I enjoyed the set and feel it should have got a bigger reaction from the crowd, who weren't properly warmed up yet.

Second act of the night was Patrick Forde.

Patrick bounded onto the stage, full of energy and enthusiasm, but looked a bit nervous from the start. Some of the material was quite good, with a couple of gems in there, and some of it fell a bit flat. He was doing okay, but the bit that really saved it was the Cartman-does-Dirty-Harry impression which earned a smattering of applause. Impressions are generally the easy, safe route in comedy, but the important thing is that the punters usually laugh. Patrick has been going for about four years and I would have thought he'd be higher than open spot level by now (the likes of Dominic Woodward have been going less than that). He needs to learn mic technique as well - comedians who shout down the microphone without distancing it from their mouth can be incredibly irksome.

Next up was local comic Louis Martin.

Louis - City Life Comedian of the Year finalist last year - has played at Malarkey's before and I know him well from the Comedy Balloon and always does pretty well. He started tonight with some familiar material and then went into some quite good banter with the audience. His delivery was quite dry and laid back and suited the material perfectly. He had some new material about his job as a teacher mixed into older stuff and got a good (and well deserved) response from the crowd.

Main support of the night was a change on the bill; Dan Nightingale gallantly made way for Irish comic Neil Delamere as he was in the area and agreed to do the gig (Dan was on the week after).

I saw Neil once before at the Off the Rails comedy club and he was good then, but took it up a notch at XS. Although he was technically main support he is easily capable of headlining. He started off with a nice Crimewatch gag, then moved onto observational material about sitting next to the only person on the bus (the delivery in this bit particularly helpful in getting the laughs). A nice pop at hen parties wearing 'L' plates and material about turning into his dad, amongst a wealth of other stories and gags went up to make a superb gig. I'm sure Neil will be back before long.

Headliner of the night was Aussie comic and adopted Manc Steve Hughes.

Steve had some absolutely cracking material, largely about Australian culture and the differences between that and English culture, including surfing Goths, going to the seaside and gayness: "In England, wearing an earring in your right ear means you're gay. In Australia it's when you've got your cock in another man's arse." Class. It was difficult to decide on the Man of the Match award tonight, although I think Neil may have just pipped it, mainly due to the fact that he was a last minute replacement and stormed it (although Steve came a very close second).

Spider.