"Pat sweats quite profusely and frequently mops his brow."

First up in the comedy cavalcade at XS Malarkey tonight and making his debut was Dave Skinner.

Dave had a sharp, slick, confident stage presence and a procession of gags, some slightly sick and twisted, in a fairly similar style to David Bloom, with some good quality punchlines scattered throughout. Material ranged from incest to smoking geese (although the latter bit seemed to lose the crowd slightly at some point). But on the whole, it was a short-ish but sweet set which got the night off to a good start.

Second act of the night was a comic who's played XS on numerous previous occasions, Moston-based Steven Law.

Steven hadn't played XS in a while (in fact, he'd not done a gig for a few months) so it was good to hear him come out with some new material which was pretty strong for the most part. Starting off with living in Moston, the photographs of Iraqi prisoners, attempting to find a girlfriend (with a nice paedophile gag) and a checklist of things to do to enjoy sex. His stage presence has improved since his early days and the audience really went for it. Nice one, Steve.

Third on in the first section of the show was another comic who'd played Malarkey's before and done well, Jamie Douglas.

He started off on a cracking gag about being desperate to vomit and ending up doing it on a man in the toilet cubicle ("Well... I'd better get the first punch in."), followed by the first instance of a running joke about getting emails from Vladimir Putin and his hilarious lost-in-translation English. He had an interesting business venture (fizzy milk) and the remaining material was good, with some classy gags, in a style vaguely reminiscent of Markus Birdman. A very good ending to a good first section.

After the break, and main support of the evening, was a comic who is one of the barstaff's favourite comic, and one of mine as well.

One of the great things I love about Stephen's unique brand of humour is his way with words, for example, in the material about Michael Barrymore: "Swimming pool-based shenanigans." All the material was great but it really is the delivery that carries it off. Some of the material was new, some wasn't, but all of it was funny even though I'd heard some before. The guy could probably read from a phone book and it would be funny.

Main headliner of the night, making his XS Malarkey debut, was spoof German comic, Helmut.

Helmut opened up with a brief introduction followed by an amusing slideshow of his travels which went down well with the crowd and got the set off to a good start. The act was built largely around German stereotypes about not being funny - a cheap laugh but it got a good reaction. There was also a humourous Germanic look at the British sense of humour and the state of the country's trains, amongst other things. There were plenty of sharply written gags which would work in a non-spoof set. Altogther a well put together character act which proved a hit with the crowd.

Spider.