COMPERE Chris Ramsey has supported some of the biggest names in stand-up comedy and, despite his youth, is becoming one of the circuit’s rising stars.

The 23-year-old, from South Shields, South Tyneside, has some great material about his experience as an audience member of the Jeremy Kyle show, witnessing how Britain’s underclass of daytime television enthusiasts behave first hand.

He’s an assured performer, at ease in front of a rowdy crowd, but his audience banter was lost a bit because of the distance he was from the stag do he was engaging with.

First act Susan Murray, a Brummie, gets in there first with cracks about how her strong West Midlands accent makes her sound stupid, and was very promising.

However, course routines about sex were a little tired and she failed to hit any real high notes.

Murray was supposed be headlining, but organisers brought in long-haired, bearded, 40-year-old, Scottish comic John Scott at the last minute and fair play to them.

What was panning out to be a bit of a letdown was transformed with his amiable and self-deprecating, but razor sharp, sometimes sick, humour.

Scott admits to looking like a homeless Bee Gee but during the interval he was told that he looked like one of them “big fat hairy bikers”.

“I don’t think that is what they are called, madam,” was his riposte.

Despite a slow start and some patchy parts, Tyneside audiences were treated to another evening of top-drawer live stand up.