With Darren Harriot, Lily Phillips and Felicity Ward.

I had high hopes for Matt Richardson’s comedy show - when I looked at the line up I’d heard of 2 out of the 3 featured comedians which made me feel unusually smug.

The venue was not one I associated with comedy though: the Cornerstone’s comfortably modern theatre auditorium felt slightly at odds with a comedy club vibe.

Matt Richardson, who hosts the Laughing Ox, was the perfect compère for the occasion. Didcot born and bred, he was totally at home - fully willing and able to take the piss out of anyone he could see from the front row back.

This enabled the other acts to riff off being on first name terms with the audience - particularly two 14 year-olds one of whom (Gabriel) confessed he wanted to be a stand-up comedian.

Felicity Ward endearingly interspersed some self-deprecating asides to Gabriel about what not to do as a comic (Gabriel - you don’t usually say this bit out loud).

I’d heard her before on the brilliantly foul-mouthed satirical podcast The Bugle. I find her free-flowing, quick-witted style hilarious but it seemed a little wasted in the slightly stilted theatre atmosphere. When she asked the audience if anyone apart from the 14 year olds identified as “young” and there was complete silence until one 22 year-old was outed by her Dad!

Darren Harriot’s material mixed it up a bit with some original material about Rastafarianism (his Dad's religion) and Kanye Wests latest crisis. His laid-back style seemed more suited to the ‘grown-up’ atmosphere (though I don’t think the audience were all that up to date on Kanye, myself included.)

The most laugh-out-loud funny act of the night was Lily Phillips, who joyously romped through shockingly funny jokes on abortion, smear tests, and whale vaginas. She seemed to revel in the potential discomfort these jokes might create while skilfully managing to avoid actual bad taste.

Women are annoyingly underrepresented in the comedy world so it was a real pleasure to see a comedy night where men and women were equally represented - in my (biased) opinion the women were funnier!

The Laughing Ox Comedy Club has another 4 gigs between now and June at different venues including Bicester and Wantage (Laughing Ox Comedy Club Stand-up in Oxfordshire United Kingdom). Judging from the full house at Didcot there’s clearly a gap in the market for high quality comedy in Oxfordshire.

With tickets at £18 it was great value for tried and tested comedians rather than the mixed bag you often get in comedy clubs. I’m certainly keen to see how the Laughing Ox translates to different venues as, for me, the only thing the evening lacked was atmosphere.