"It's a bit odd to come on and do music at a comedy show, because you're here to laugh but you're listening to me sing about my heartbreak so politely."

The intentions of Hotbed are all in the right place - give budding singer-songwriters, comedians, poets a platform to perform, turning Worthing into a 'hotbed' of talent.

But Rachel Hawker hit the nail on the head as the audience obediently listened to the three-song sets that she and fellow singer-song writer Andrew Foster performed.

Comic Kate Wilson was embraced by the encouraging crowd, who felt nervous but hit several funny chords in a set full of potential.

But electricity ran through the meagre audience when headliner Phill Jupitus arrived on the stage - first with his hilarious ditties under the guise of his age-old character Porky the Poet, then for a face-achingly funny full second half from the "recently redundant, mid-life crisis sex pervert".

His pure talent and professionalism was evident as he switched the politely listening crowd to unrelenting laughter.

Looking out at swathes of empty seats the on-form comic was undeterred: "there's obviously 300 people who don't know quality entertainment when it's presented to them in a converted cinema near a pier."

"It's amazing," he said about Hotbed, which is run in conjunction with the council. "That a council is still willing to put money into the arts. It's laudable."

Despite the good intentions of Hotbed, compered by a likeable and funny Mark Kelly, the school talent-show feel of combining a variety of talents before a big name act didn't pass by Jupitus either.

"This is getting weird," he said as he struggled to drag himself from the stage. "I suppose it's fitting that the night should end as it began."

Three stars