TIME in the company of Henry Rollins is always time well spent.

SO pleased to finally see Hellboy II this week. Sure, there's a lot of worthy reasons to see the film, Pan's Labyrinth mastermind Guillermo del Torro directing and all that.... Actually, that's the only worthy reason. The rest is just nonsense. And as such, long live Hellboy!

Hails to Neil Fitzmaurice, and his plans for a Liverpool "comedy night with a difference".

COMEDY, like everything else, is a bit thin on the ground this time of year, what with the stand ups decamping to Edinburgh and most of the theatres dark for most of the month.

(Except for the Royal Court, where Eight Miles High (starring Keith Carter among others) still has a few days to go and which I'm checking out tonight - but then again, turns out one of their mid-August Rawhides has been cancelled - what's going on?!).

So, we're reduced to snooping around the net and checking up on how things are going North of the border for our Scouse brethren.

ESCHEWING the virtues of Curb Your Enthusiasm on this blog a while ago, I said "by season six of anything in the UK, whatever it is that it is, it stinks". It was a generalism born of the trend for good shows to pack in after two series in a fit of creative pique. Enter the exception to the rule, Peep Show, which just finished up its fifth series, is heading for more, and is as genuinely funny now as it has ever been. To illustrate:

APOLOGIES, apologies and thrice apologies to Rhona Cameron, who came to town a couple of weeks ago and was goodly enough to begrudgingly let us interview her beforehand.

AN Irishman, an Irishman and an Irishman walk into an arena and…

Beardy genius shines with The Impotent Fury of the Privileged at the Playhouse

SOMETHING akin to what might have transpired if Woody Allen was raised by a family of British vicars (and the latter is actually true in this case), Robin Ince’s downbeat, machine gun fire delivery compacts literally life, the universe and everything into just over an hour. It is very hard to get him off stage once he’s started, as he’s desperate to cram so much in.

ORMSKIRK-born, Crosby-raised and now Leeds-based comic Silky has most recently been seen in the city compering at the sadly missed, but hopefully soon to be reborn Capital of Comedy nights at the Slaughterhouse, so the chance to see what he’d do in an hour long show was promising.