IT WAS unpredictable, naughty and truly hilarious when Paul Merton appeared at the Pavilion on Saturday night.

Paul, star of Room 101 and Have I Got News For You, was joined by four fellow comedians, Mike McShane, Lee Simpson, Suki Webster and Richard Vranch for the Impro Chums show, which as the name suggests, is nearly two hours of entirely improvised comedy.

This show had a winning formula from the start which involved audience participation, with Paul getting people to call out suggestions for the character's job, clothes, standing position or imaginary object that they are holding and the comedians on stage acting on it.

Made-up ideas included a man who weighs sea turtles, two people in a library, a person who worked as both a farmer and a baker and a nightclub scene in the style of Shakespeare.

It also featured lots of short scenes where one of the people would shout 'Freeze' and take the exact position of the person before them, but with a completely different storyline.

The result meant that if you hadn't laughed in the past 20-seconds, a gag was sure enough to come along and put a smile on your face. Plus, the jokes weren't old and over-used but instead brand new as they had been created before your eyes.

I have seen both stand-up comedy and improvised theatre before, but by combining them, it made for a much more light-hearted show as there was no pause to wait for the audience to laugh.

The evening was pure genius as the comedians had to really think on their feet and I hope another top comedian borrows the idea and brings it back to Bournemouth soon.