FESTIVAL DIARY DAY 10 - Pat Cahill, Liam Mullone & Ian Crawford

Ten days in, there is a distinct pattern emerging to my daily festival routine. Namely: sleep in as late as possible; do my write-ups; do lots of coughing and nose-blowing; dose myself up with medication and load my pockets with tissues for the evening shows, which go by in blur of laughter, moderate amounts of alcohol, smoking and comedy-based chatter; then puff, pant and swear my way back uphill to my house and collapse in bed. Livin' the dream... And yesterday was no exception - even the lure of the mid-festival party at Just The Tonic's late bar was not enough to keep me out past half ten... I must be getting old.

Original thinker - Pat Cahill

Thankfully, though, I was treated to 3 very different sets of enjoyable stand-up along the way.

FESTIVAL PREVIEW #2: Character and Sketch Comedy

Howdy folks, it's time for my second preview post for Dave's Leicester Comedy Festival - hooray!

Today I'm looking at some of the finest character comics and sketch groups performing over the 17-day laughathon.

Every stand-up has an onstage persona, that is to say even if they perform as themselves, it's usually an exaggerated or more entertaining version of themselves. But creating a whole new character and completely becoming that character onstage, allows a performer the freedom to say and do things they wouldn't dare to under their own name. A well-realised character can get away with the most horrendously inappropriate things, safe in the knowledge that people will never hold them responsible, only the character.

REVIEW: Hurricane Pat hugs his way into town

Winner of ITV's 'Show Me the Funny' and walking hug-factory Patrick Monahan was kind enough to pop into the Looking Glass for an hour or so last night, to do exactly what he does best - mucking around with the audience. The judges on comedy's version of the X-Factor tried their best to make him stand still and deliver jokes instead of actually being himself, but clearly they failed (thankfully).

After dashing up from London for the gig, Monahan arrived at the Looking Glass during the interval  to cheers, and treated us to a hugging workshop, lashings of ad-libbing and audience banter, and a small amount of material about Bear Grylls carrying the Olympic torch and the best costume in which to run a marathon.

He then dashed off to get the last train back to London, narrowly missing out on his target of hugging everyone in the room before he left. It was a fairly brief set, but it was enough to remind us why he's so popular on the circuit and why he won 'Show Me the Funny' despite the judges' best efforts to clip his comedy wings.

Also appearing on the night were Ian Crawford, a well-crafted character act with some hilariously daft safety advice about cutlery; and South African Brummie-convert Albert Smith, who was charming enough to get away with his treading-a-thin-line racial material and frequent references to his West Midlands home, although one couldn't help wondering how well the Brum stuff would go down outside the Midlands. The whole affair was compered in the usual assured style by Ship of Fools founder Alan Seaman.

The next Ship of Fools night is Writers Stand Up (part of the 'Everybody's Reading' festival) on Wednesday 3rd October at the Exchange Bar.