Stephen Grant, Komedia, Brighton, May 24

11:52am Friday 25th May 2007

Thursday nights, as Stephen Grant accepted early on, are traditionally viewed as graveyard slots for stand-up comedy.

Fortunately, the lynchpin of Krater Comedy Club was testing out his new show and would probably have flogged most of the seats if it had been a public day of mourning to mark the start of a new Ice Age.

It was a tight if unspectacular set of gags, sharp observations and intelligent wit combined with the maniacal pedantry which gives away his background in computers.

Grant shares the same birthday as Peter Kay and, although the pair are about as comparable as Bernard Manning and Bill Hicks, he is as much a product of Brighton as Kay is of Bolton.

Instinctively comfortable on stage, he spurts out thoughts like a hyperactive elf who's swallowed a firecracker and is about to explode.

Such unpretentious passion saw his eagerness to please hit the mark.