COMPERE Sally-Anne Hayward proved popular with the crowd as the warm-up act, skilfully working the room to get people in the mood for an evening of chuckles.

She combines coarse banter with a wicked and sophisticated sense of humour, as well as a very likeable stage presence.

Irish comic Mary Bourke was first up and, although there was the odd gem of intelligent comedy, some of the material fell a little flat.

According to her website, she is most famous for having written “the joke that was heard around the world”.

It goes: “My name is Shazia Mirza, at least that’s what it says on my pilot’s licence.”

But unfortunately, the Dublinborn comic failed to hit any such high notes with the Tyneside crowd. It seemed as though she was scoring her own material while performing it, as she was making notes during the two biggest laughs.

Pete Cain fared a bit better with a set that included what he’d do if he was in charge of the country and came up with a list of fairly commonsense policies that would be widely popular.

His solution for the overpopulation of the country was getting everyone out and only letting people who contributed something worthwhile back in.

It made for an innovative way of engaging with the audience and taking the Mickey out of people’s jobs.