Having booked our tickets for the A Rum Do cabaret at the first possible instant on Friday, we were looking forward to some nonsense and some glamour all wrapped up in a haze of red wine and moustaches. Instead, we stood for ages in the rain while the world's most glamorous queue became increasingly irate as the show gets pushed back and back.

Everyone's patience gets stretched to molecular levels when the door staff start rather nervously calling out for everyone to shunt across to the left (the pushing in side) and that no tickets were given out for those who'd reserved. "Chairman Miaow is not pleased!" barks a woman in a Marilyn wig, clutching a toy cat. This is the sort of crowd you don't want to get mad. They'd probably lipstick you.

Inevitably, security gives up and opens the doors to the masses, which pisses everyone off even more but as we're all finally indoors this is promptly forgotten in favour of grabbing seats. The Splott Brothers kick everything off brilliantly, swinging full pint glasses around their heads and proving that a dotty looking man in a fez and another one armed with a piano will make everyone happy. That aside, acts tonight had a cranky audience, and repeatedly shouting for everyone to shut up didn't endear any of them any more. Jewish comedian Sol Bernstein makes a few close to the knuckle jokes which go well, but then spends the rest of his act going "I'm old!" and "Shuddap you f***ermothers!" when heckled by the front rows for not actually telling any gags. Oh well.

The Extraordinaires, set for a full-length gig later, enchant everyone with their tight harmonies and beaming grins, in stark contrast to Jokate Benson's earlier anti-man ranting which palled after one song. Blues good, bad songs, bad. Lord Velvet And His Dangerous Snake make some mad noises with drums and a keyboard. It's utterly bonkers and strangely brilliant. A stag and hen dance on tables cheered on by their Moulin Rouge buddies, then what looks like a school drum troupe comes on. Oh wait, it's the finale and in addition to the Girl Guides onstage there's a lady in some sparkly bits of nothing grinning and jiggling her bits in envy-making fashion. "I might buy one of those glittery thingies," says the old lady next to us, angling her camera to get a close-up. Rock on missus.

Raucous applause, then the tables are shoved back and everyone starts dancing. Aloud shake our moneymaker to 'Superstition' then our eyelids fall over our chin and it's time to go to bed. We're passing the baton to Jim. Snore...