I've been fortunate enough to go to see Mark Steel, Jimmy Carr, Robin Ince and tomorrow will be seeing Tim Minchin:hihi:! I love this festival and can't wait for it to get bigger. What kind of things can we expect them to do for next year?

I'm off to Whirlow for the Last Laugh night. Not seen anything else. Saw Jimmy Carr last year and was very disappointed - rubbish live.

I thought he was pretty good at the city hall last week

He may have been good this year - but he sure as hell wasn't when I saw him. I felt last year was very lazy - he repeated loads of terrible one liners, and his written stuff was very poor. That said, when he was just chatting about hecklers and tour experiences he was very funny - but this only made up about 10% of his show.

He may have been good this year - but he sure as hell wasn't when I saw him. I felt last year was very lazy - he repeated loads of terrible one liners, and his written stuff was very poor. That said, when he was just chatting about hecklers and tour experiences he was very funny - but this only made up about 10% of his show.

I agree, he dealt with hecklers amazingly and was a good on the spot comedian. One liners get too much after 10minutes. Some of my friends went and absolutley loved it. What do you think the Grin up north needs to be bigger? I'd like to see it expand.

I think it should expand too. Although I've not seen much this year (skint!) I normally would have. It's great for the venues too as it raises their profile. Plus events like the one up at Whirlow are good as they're a little quirky. And the beer should be great!

I can definitely recommend checking out The Shrimps at the Lescar on Sunday. It's improv with a bit of edge about it and a real departure from the egos of the bigname stand ups