"Grrr!"

First up onto the Malarkey stage in tonight's cacophany of comedy was local comic Ian Fox.

Ian did material old and new, and it's actually quite difficult to review him because at the time of writing this I've been performing in The Great Big Comedy Picnic in Edinburgh with him and I now know his material word for word! All I can say is that - apart from a couple of "Ooh, I've lost my thread" bits - it was well performed (if a little quiet over the PA). The highlight for me was the geniune advert for a child model agency - 'Check Out Kids On The Web'. Maybe that's just my sense of humour... A decent enough set to kick the night off with, the audience warming up as it went on.

Second on was another local act who's steadily growing in stature on the Manchester circuit, Peter von Natzmer.

Peter is very relaxed, calm and natural on stage (not to mention highly efficient) and his material is steadily getting better. There was still the odd line here and there which was met with a ripple of laughter but mainly it was met with a warm response, and the occasional round of applause. I think Peter is at the stage of development where his material is solid and he should have a bit of a go at chatting to the audience a bit to see what happens. I'm sure he's capable of it. A decent enough response from a slightly lethargic crowd.

Next on, after the beer break, was me, Neil Smith.

Listening to the recording of tonight, it's always weird listening to the sound of your own voice on stage. It's a good way to pick out flaws in your delivery though. I thought I did fairly well tonight, decent enough delivery (although not perfect by any means). Couple of nice little adlibs though. It really is a pleasure to play at XS Malarkey - as a comedian you're almost guaranteed a decent reaction (it is monumentally difficult to die on stage there). So in summary, a very enjoyable gig - not the best I've ever had but a good one regardless.

Main support of the night was North Yorkshire comic Warren Speed, making his XS debut.

Warren started with some 'traditional' material about the village where he's from (being inbred and twinned with itself), followed by some stuff about the joys of having a satisfying poo, and his mother shitting in her handbag, which is subsequently grabbed by a bag snatcher. Som of the material was fairly base (but then mine isn't exactly cutting edge political satire), and included Star Wars porn (hack alert!) but generally did the job with the crowd. The musical bit near the end got some good laughs.

Headliner of the night, doing an extended set, was the one and only Mick Ferry.

Mick started off with a brief intro about putting your foot in it, followed by a good ten minutes of banter trying to set an audience member up with his female friend. He did some familiar material (his dad being a Super Paddy) and some new material (about the time he fucked up his chances in a comedy competition by saying that the judges touch kids). All in all it was about an hour of Classic Ferry Gold. Superb stuff. It's easy to see why he's one of the best comperes in Manchester.

Spider.