Not in audience reaction alone, but also in actual temperature.

So, as the crowd sits huddled round the front of the stage, I sit at the back, still with my coat on.

Compere Dave Ingram gives us his usual excellent performance – two thumbs up, sorry for not clapping too hard Dave, cold hands banging against each other is not my idea of fun.

Up first is Jason Cook, a usually excellent Geordie comedian, has a bit of trouble getting the room laughing and after a thankless ten minutes he throws in his last card and exits stage right.

As the compere heralds a break, the heaters finally start to kick in and the audience loosens up for the next acts.

Walking on stage with guitar in hand, Ashley Frieze’s overly tight trousers aid him in his soprano comedic songs. Urgh.

He comes off mildly racist and with the self confidence of a dismembered daddy long-legs.

Not cringe worthy humour, just cringe worthy.

Scottish comedian Quentin Reynolds was next up, I found his accent hard to understand, so didn't get a lot of his jokes, but hey, the rest of the audience seemed to be enjoying it.

The final act, Des Clarke may actually be the funniest man I've ever seen.

Stuttering his way along, he backtracked and changed track so many times I was sure we'd lost him, but then ba-bum tisch he'd hit us with the punch line.

Absolutely excellent and considering he jumped in at the last minute when the headline act Andy White dropped out, he was a welcome surprise!

If you're interested... Andy White has been rescheduled to the Easter special, same location, same time, on 24th March.