The Thursday Show, The Stand, Glasgow, Oc 26

Glasgow banter merchant Sandy Nelson was the perfect host for a fine evening's comedy at the Stand. Leicester biscuit packer Matt Hollins started with a self deprecating dreariness that made it hard to tell where irony ended and reality begun. However, when compared with second act Eleanor Tiernan's scatty irrelevance he seemed positively hilarious. After the interval Neil Dougan provided some good old punch-line laughs in the assured manner only middle age can bring. Then finally came the headline act, Michael McIntyre, a comedian with the same smarmy confidence as Jimmy Carr. His Scottish routine was as good as I've seen from an Englishman, coming before a sequence of fairly obvious but nonetheless amusing observations. [Peter Walker]