MORE top names from the national comedy circuit appeared at Poole Lighthouse’s excellent monthly showcase, The Comedy Works, on Saturday.

Zoe Lyons was first up with an impressively topical routine of observational comedy. Her mother’s alcoholic flu remedies (“The flu went, but I was left with a massive hangover and irreversible liver damage”) the VAT rise (“Difficult for Poundland, or 102.5p Land as it will now be known”) and the pre-Christmas snow falls (“They lied to us in the Christmas songs. There’s no ‘dashing through the snow’ in this country”) were all grist to her comedic mill.

But it was two characters from comedian Tom Binns who stole the show.

His “Sunderland Psychic”, Ian D Montfort, is a wicked parody of the social club charlatans who claim contact with “the other side”. Summoning a range of celebrity helpers from beyond the grave, including Michael Jackson (“In some ways Michael will always be with us... because he’s not biodegradable”) D Montfort “channelled” messages to his hapless victims in the audience. (“You’ve got a very strong aura coming off you – at least, I think it’s aura.”) Comedy aside, his readings were scarily accurate.

Binns returned after a short break as Ivan Brackenbury, a socially inept hospital radio DJ whose appalling choices for patient song requests drew huge laughs. The Spice Girls’ Two Become One was played for Siamese twins facing separation surgery, while the Madness hit Baggy Trousers was chosen for fictional anorexic Jess. A series of ill-judged public announcements (standing room only in the haemorrhoid clinic, a £1.50-a-minute help line for people who stutter) interspersed the dubious DJ’s tasteless play list.

The Comedy Works returns to the Lighthouse on February 5.