We knew this was a sellout because the day before Mrs Chrisparkle’s parents went to book their tickets, but were turned away in disappointment. Shame, as it was another excellent night, although not without its downside, which came chiefly in the guise of the first comic of the night, Dave Thompson. He wasn’t entirely bad; he had a few good lines, but generally speaking his act was (imho) very slow and very tasteless. We’re not a very sophisticated audience in Northampton but nor are we intolerant, so all the stuff about waving a limp wrist and saying “just moved to Brighton, does is show?” gets met with a stony silence. He just didn’t connect.

Anyway on to much brighter things with Meryl O’Rourke our second act who was frankly hilarious. Fast, on the ball, good interactions, dealt with potentially difficult front row extremely well, delightfully rude. Lots of good stuff here.

Final act was Alan Francis, a slower more thoughtful style, and with some political stuff that often doesn’t work well here but it succeeded with him. Nicely self-deprecating. This photograph of him must be very old indeed though.

Dan Evans was back compering and on excellent form. Looking forward to the new year’s season and I hope they keep with the Friday night dates, as you get many more people and the atmosphere is much buzzier.