“Get here early,” said Declan from Span arts who organise the monthly Laugh Lines night. I thought that was the first joke, for whenever I go to the Queens Hall I am sucked into some sort of punctuality time warp where I am always uncomfortably early for the gig.

Determined to beat it this time, I arrived a fashionable 45 minutes after the start time. Big mistake. A hand written “SOLD OUT” sign was taped to the door and I had to beg the bouncer to let me in. I missed most of the good food from Café Q and arrived just as MC Danny Buckler was introducing Alex Horne onto the stage.

The hall was jam packed. Apparently people started arriving at about seven to fill the candle-lit tables and by the time I got there it was difficult to find even a bit of standing room to lever yourself into. I eventually found a good spot sitting on the spare bar at the back of the hall.

In a charming, self deprecating, cheeky chappie kind of a way Alex Horne was great to watch. He built up a great rapport with the audience, especially Ben, Jim and Evans, and then launched into a rambling series of vaguely interlinked stories bursting with one liners and double entendres.

His physical comedy was spot on. I particularly liked his jokes about air-punctuation, in an expansion on those annoying inverted commas people do with their fingers Alex introduced the semi colon and parenthesis. Very, very funny it definitely appealed to the punctuation snob in me.

He ended his set with a Justin Timberlake-esque beat box which, in a cunning collaboration with the sound engineer, progressed to incorporate invisible drums, guitar and sound bites from popular songs. This comedy club thing, I decided, had great potential.

In the pee and pint interval I bumped into Gareth, a comedy club regular who has been coming to the Queens Hall for the last year.

“When we started to come there’d be about 40 people in the audience,” he told me.

“There’s always a brilliant atmosphere and they get a calibre of comedian that you just don’t find elsewhere in Pembrokeshire.”

After the break the we were treated to a long and convoluted Phantom of the Opera story as well as some first class improvisation from the attention seeking kid that was MC Danny. (I watched the DVD last night Danny and I’d have to agree with you.) He then introduced the evening’s headline act: Time Out Award winning comedian Andy Parsons.

Andy Parsons is shaven headed, under bitten, moustachioed and bearded. Apparently, as he’d walked onto what he described as a “rubix cube of a stage” he’d passed a man called Evans pissing out the fire exit. Poor Evans became the focus of Parson’s comic invective for a good portion of the evening.

When he wasn’t taking the piss out of pissing Evans, Parsons delivered a cerebral diatribe, liberally peppered with the “f word”, on topical issues. In a voice that sounded like it was barking from the back of his sinuses and with sergeant-major like intonation Parson’s repartee ranged from Saddam to the Royals via fox hunting and smoking bans.

Returning to Evans the comedian had to stop the show as he cracked up on stage.

“I’ve made me self laugh ladies and gentlemen, I can only apologise for that.”

He wound down the evening with a rant about things that “get on my tits” which thoroughly enjoyed as I do love that expression. He then turned his attention back to ripping it out of the audience. I was rather relieved to be secreted away at the back of the hall far from the funny man’s attention.

Parsons told us that one big laugh burns up two calories. I’m sure I had burnt off my carrot cake from Café Q by the time he left the stage. I’d laughed so much my insides felt like they’d been massaged and drove home from the Queens Hall a much happier bunny than I’d been before.

As cherry popping experiences go it was a pretty good one. I will definitely be back to have my funny bone tickled by Karl Spain, Anvil Springstien and Parrot on the 8^th of next month. Next time though, I’ll be sure to book a seat and to get there on time.