It is a tribute to the management and staff of the Stand Comedy Club that Thursday night's show was packet to capacity nearly an hour before the compere hit the stage. We find that it pays to get there early, almost as soon as the doors open in order to ensure a good seat and to partake of the excellent food freshly prepared by Matthew, the resident chef, at a reasonable price and also to wash this down with any of the wide selection of drinks from the bar, both excellent methods of gaining sustenance and passing the time whilst whetting the appetite the main course of the real reason for the sell-out, the comedy.

Compere for the night was the star of TV and comedy clubs everywhere the irrepressible Frankie Boyle. He is of course a master of his art and with a well-honed repertoire of ascorbic wit and an ability to entertain one and all.

Opening act Daliso Chaponda was certainly a new name to me. He took control of the audience from the off with his own brand of humour. A native of central Africa ,although resident currently in Manchester, he had a wide range of material, and was not long in rocking the capacity audience with laughter. I feel he would do even better if he'd had more time, there was certainly scope for much of his material to be developed into longer routines and he is certainly an act well worth checking out. I certainly look forward to seeing him again.

Next up was a very short slot from Hull born comedian Gordon Alexander. He seemed rather nervous and unfortunately this was evident to the audience. He had some pretty good material but it really needed polishing up. Given this I'm sure he will be around for a while.

The closing act of the second segment was the rather eccentric Andrew Lawrence. He did his entire set using a variety of strange voices even when he was performing a self-written song. There were times when I got a hint of Gryf Rhys Jones about his delivery, and the guy certainly has stage presence. Maybe a little experimental for me, but I'm sure there is a niche with his name on it, so who knows?

Finally, top of the bill, the one and only Lucy Porter. Regular readers of our site will know she is a favourite of ours so it was a delight to see her again. Lucy is really a quandary in that she is gorgeous, slim, petite and has such an innocent look about her, but.... she can also be a total minx and boy do the audience get to see that side of her in spades. She oozes persona and charm, exceptionally funny, at times she is self-depreciating,  anecdotal at others, outrageous occasionally, but mix the lot together and she is just the very special person that is Lucy. An absolute hoot and a must to see if she is ever in your area.. Hopefully it will be only a short time before we can see her again as usual she is gracing the Edinburgh Fringe strutting her stuff at The Pleasance in August.

  If you hurry though, you could catch this line up again on Friday and Saturday with the added attraction of Anvil Springsteen also check out www.thestand.co.uk for further details.