Ealing Live!

It is difficult to decide what was more surreal - the sight of a sparkling Joan Collins in the audience at a sweaty comedy gig or a spindly Tom Meeten hilariously shuffling like a crab across the stage.

Both events last night certainly confirmed that you never know what you'll get at this weekly work-in-progress.

With more than a dozen performers exercising their funny bones it is certainly a rapid-fire event. New characters dominate. Ben Willbond, formerly of Perrier Best Newcomers Ben and Arn, comperes in his latest guise of city boy Freddie, a likeable if unoriginal Tim-Nice-But-Dim trader. In derivatives, presumably.

Peaks included Robin Ince's inept gigolo and Simon Farnaby's down-at-hoof horse, a Creature Comfort made flesh. Katherine Jakeways' Southend entertainer, a devastatingly dim distaff David Brent, was another winner. Meeten's aforementioned crustacean capers certainly put the mental in experimental.

The sketches were more scattershot, though duo Hopkins and Glover essayed some well-choreographed sight gags. But there is considerable potential throughout.

Future stars have to start somewhere and what better location than this club, based in the spiritual home of British film humour? To borrow from the Collins CV, a new comedic dynasty is emerging here.