Helen Lederer's One Night Stand With Her Date Tim McArthur, Darwen Library Theatre

"ISN'T Darwen a bit Poundstretcher?" the comedy actress confessed to asking her agent before becoming one of the first acts to grace the stage at the town's newly refurbished Library Theatre.

This sort of opening gambit could have proved disastrous, especially with an audience made up mainly of devoted "Darreners".

Instead, the star of Naked Video, Absolutely Fabulous, Girls on Top and, for those with good memories, the Warninks television advertising campaign, went down a storm.

Her expressive rubber-like face, coupled with countless hilarious anecdotes, couldn't fail to keep an initially unsure audience entertained.

It's not very often this quality of alternative comedy ventures out of the cities and bigger towns.

That's why it was a real shame to see empty seats at what should have been a sell-out show.

Tim McArthur with his slapstick singing and dancing routines proved to be the perfect accompaniment to Lederer's razor-sharp wit.

He was in no way overshadowed. In fact one of the biggest laughs of the night came when he serenaded a photograph of Hollywood heartthrob Leonardo Di Caprio.

Let's hope that the standard has now been set.

If Lederer's agent is to be believed then we can look forward to Darwen becoming "the new brown" or "Bolton on acid".

ANDREA MULDOON

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.