We’ve had to miss a couple of Screaming Blue Murders recently so it was good to get back into the comedy club groove last Friday. Dan Evans was compering, and it’s been the first time we’ve seen him for a few months. A new experience: he encountered a little difficulty with the audience for repeating the same material he’s used here before. He started a joke and a member of the audience shouted out the punchline. The ironic thing was, we’d not heard the joke before, whereas earlier he had told his Travelodge joke that we’ve heard at least a dozen times. Dan you are very funny comedian and a great host, but we do need a bit more new material!!

First act was the Raymond and Mr Timpkins Revue. I think I can safely say this is an act like no other. 95% mime – or maybe that should be 95% larking about – these two guys act out the lyrics from about a hundred or so cut and pasted pop songs in one long musical stream; mainly with the aid of big aide-memoir type cards. Some of it is incredibly inventive; some of it is heavily telegraphed; some of it is a bit gross; for us, all of it was belly-laugh funny. You’ll either get this and love it, or you won’t and hate it. By far the majority loved it. With some cleaner material you could see this going down a storm at the Royal Variety Performance. Excellent!

Next we had Jen Brister. She had a great rapport with the audience and some excellent material about being a lesbian with a Catholic Spanish mother. She got good humour out of taking the rise out of posh locations and also does some great Australian observations. Extremely good.

Headline act was Bennett Arron. His rather quiet and slightly dour Welsh persona made a nice contrast with the maniacal Raymond and Mr Timpkins and the brightly confident Jen Brister. He had some very good observations and funny scenarios and one of the best put-down lines I’ve heard: “I’m always happy to accept a heckle from a pretty girl – so Shush!” But about five minutes before the end he lost it and couldn’t think how to end the act – which kind of killed the energy. He did come up with something but it felt like a detached coda. The audience were kind however so no harm done to the jolly spirit of the evening. Three very good acts, who you’d be very happy to see again.