"Ja! David Hasslehoff is supercool!"

Rick Kiesewetter The last XS Malarkey of the year - would it be a good one to see the year off? First up onto the stage was an act making his return to Malarkey, Rick Kiesewetter.

Once again, Rick had a great set. Good delivery of some cracking material, mainly about his Japanese-German-Italian upbringing. He even managed to sneak in a stereotype gag about the Japanese and cameras when I took his picture. He finished on a superb song, featuring the brilliant line, "I wish I was disabled - deaf, blind or ginger." Awesome. A great start to the show.

Debs Gatenby Next on - in somewhat stark contrast to Rick - was Debs Gatenby.

Debs, by her own admission, revealed to the crowd that doing the gig was part of her therapy. The thing is, I'm not sure if she was joking or not. Her set seemed to be a rambling story of sorts, painfully short on gags (although there were a couple of painful gags - an obvious Canal Street 'leather pouffe/poof' play on words). After a while it became frankly uncomfortable to watch - like watching your mum on stage after half a bottle of gin. Even listening to the recording for writing this review I found it went in one ear and out the other. Disturbing. Ironically, the best laugh she got (out of the four mild titters) was when she said, "I think it's gone really well, hasn't it?" Eleven minutes that seemed to last a lifetime. Lee even played the tumbleweed sound effect as she went off. Slightly naughty, but funny.

Scott Tyrrell Next up - and with a hell of a job to do bringing the atmosphere back up - was Scott Tyrrell.

You could almost sense the relief from the audience that someone funny was on stage (he got a small round of applause for an early gag that never usually gets one). Scott did his solid, tried and tested stuff and found space for a bit of new material as well. His Lord Of The Rings and chatroom material in particular went down well. I quite liked the new bit of material about American kids doing British accents. A good job, well performed.

Demitris Deech After the break came another acts who'd played XS before, Demitris Deech.

Demitris had a fairly energetic, bouncy stage presence which the crowd took to well. He started with some material about moving in with his girlfriend, and followed it up with various bits and bobs peppered with plenty of gags (including a few throwaway lines which got some decent laughs). Some bits were better than others but on the whole it was a decent gig which earned him a nice round of applause at the end.

Mat and Faron Next on were the double act Mat and Faron.

Quite often double acts (especially musical ones) aren't really that good but Sunderland lads Mat and Faron are an exception to the rule. I particularly like their dark, twisted, sick (with a cheeky grin) sense of humour. Some of the songs are fantastic - the one called I'm Irish, containing exaggerated Irish stereotypes - was just utterly brilliant. One of the best comedy songs I've heard. The banter and material between songs was good as well and helped cement the whole set together. Great stuff.

Rhys Darby The final act of the year at XS Malarkey was Kiwi livewire Rhys Darby

Rhys' set consisted of some good material punctuated by some impressive noises, facial expressions and body movements. For some reason tonight I'm not sure if his heart was fully in it - a couple of technical problems didn't help, the till behind the bar making a racket for example. Still, it was a decent enough gig and a fairly nice way to end the year.

Spider.