Tamika Campbell, Gareth Urwin and Johnny Candon @ Alexander's Jazz Bar

The atmosphere remained great and the confidence had grown since my last trip, as previous sly glances over to the comedians' table in the hope they would ask me to join them turned around to an immediate approach even before the first nerve-calming pint was ordered. As always the comedians were polite, helpful, and always willing to be interviewed and answer any questions with a lot of heartful consderation to their pondering looks.

Tamika Campbell, the first to be interviewed, was a last-minute change to the night's plans, replacing the advertised Sally Main. Tamkia is originally from 'the ghetto' in New York City and this can easily be noticed during her act as comparisons to gun culture from this country to her's run wild. Tamika started stand-up comedy at the age of 28, and at 36, has had a lot of experience on the circuit, certainly more than the men she's bedded as she'll jokingly tell you on stage.

"I never aspired to be a comedian," Tamika explained, "It was an accident! I was at a comedy show in California, and the comedian was really bad, I mean really bad, so the owner asked 'can anybody do it better?' So I did!" This story shows that Tamika was a natural-born comic and certainly doesn't have a problem with revealing truths from her life whilst on the stage! She could be compared to her male-eqiouvalent, truth-talking idol, Richard Pryor.

"I was from the deep ghetto in America, childhood was hard. I never knew that you could turn bad in to comedy! I travel all over the UK now and I love it!"

Tamika's life is going through a huge change with the birth of her daughter, which has in fact changed her comedy style, or so she says. "Before I had my kid, my comedy was more about my life, now I keep that private to protect my family."

Tamika must have forgotten about that noble vow as she preceded to tell us about her daughter saying the word "fuck", holes in her pantyhoes, and having sex with an Asian man. She was incredibly funny and straight-to-the-point with no remorse, which is quite original for a lady, although it did counteract her idea of keeping her private life, er, private. All in all a lot of feedback after her comedy skit from the audience was the majority favouring a lady's point of view regarding sex, but maybe not so much the holes in their pantyhoes.

Next up for the dreaded interview was Gareth Urwin, who has a selection of comedy videos online which are definately worth checking out. Gareth broke in to the stand-up scene only 3 years ago but used his comedy wit previously in an Improv-theatre, much like the famous "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" on TV, where quick-witted comedians have to think on their feet and act out a funny scene, noise or word on cue. Whilst being a great laugh, it is extremely hard to do! Gareth I'm sure excelled in his theatre as he now shine's on stage, and with being the winner of various New Act Competition's, that certainly backs it up.

Gareth was quick to get the crowd roaring with laughter, with one lady close to me laughing hysterically literally through 99% of his act, with even the odd word busting her in to another fit of laughter. It was quite incredible!

Gareth is an instant comedy great with the material he writes and even before as he was saying to me, "I don't really feel like it today.. I went to the gym too much," showing that even on an off day he can easily raise the roof.

With 500+ gigs to his name, and a chilled out approach to his work, Gareth juggles another job and only does stand-up 2-3 times a week, because of, "mortgage and shit." He's thinking about dropping some of his act in case the "BNP stuff" isn't quite news-worthy anymore, but finishing on that note and the response it got I'm sure was a sure sign to keep it in, with the poem to Nick Griffin staying too.

I only hope he can eventually reconcile with his younger, lost, Pluto-mirroring self, which I'm sure he'll tell you all about. Oh yeah, and ask him what he thought the first person to milk a cow looked like. You're guaranteed to laugh.

Last but certainly not least by far was the main-eventer of the night, Johnny Candon. What a CV this guy has.

Inbetween chatting to Christian Slater and Johnny Depp on a movie set, he'll be texting Ricky Gervais about some unusual banter.. And this guy's sitting opposite me listening to my voice! My God, it is a small world. 'Can I speak to Ricky Gervais?' was obviously a question I couldn't keep to myself, but even one of his best buddies wouldn't know where he was between LA and England. "I'll have to ask Steve," Johnny said, in relation to Ricky's co-writer, Stephen Merchant. Wow. His phone better have a pretty good password, voice-activated preferrably for his sake.

Even from only watching interviews with Ricky Gervais, I could tell why he liked this Johnny Candon character, as both of them seemed well alike! Johnny was down-to-Earth, clever, and could look at anything from a funny point of view which he could then also relate to us, that's what makes a stand-up great! Being able to relate. And that's what Ricky Gervais does best with his "Office" and "Extras" series, and on his own stand-up performances. They're like two pea's in a pod I thought as I cried "Let me in! Let me in!" whilst banging on the wall, before quickly pulling myself together, opening my eyes again, and carrying on with the interview. How embarassing.

Anywho, they met on the comedy circuit whilst Ricky was trying out his new material for his first stand-up show, "Animals". "I still talk to him a lot. I havn't seen him in 18 months but I get a lot of texts off him. I used to do quiz nights with him and Stephen Merchant," Johnny casually announced. What a guy.

It hasn't all been a celebrity-filled fun ride for Johnny though as he casts his memory back to his early days, "I've always been a fan of stand-up. I wanted to do it, so I said to a friend once I was going to, and her reply was 'alright then', so I thought, 'yeah, alright then!' Instead of building it up as this huge thing she thought it was no big deal, and so it wasn't!"

Johnny started the same time as Jimmy Carr and remembers seeing him a lot during regular tours doing stand-up and writing comedy, which is now a full-time commitment for Johnny, even despite the first step not happening as you would plan it.. "I was too drunk to do my very first gig! I drank loads before going on to calm the nerves, then I just walked on stage, stared for a bit in a drunken haze, and said, 'I can't do it', then walked back off. So if you want to do it and it's open mic, just go for it!"

Johnny is a naturally funny guy, on and off stage, so it's sad to think of his poor soul "talking to people who you don't want to talk to" when he was a telemarketer before his comedy work became big.

All three performers and stand-up comedians in general are great inspirations to show people they can do anything if they really want to, as after all the stage fright, the new material gone wrong (jokes misconstructed as racist, as in Johnny and Gareth's case, they're not really racist!), and the inevitable death on stage (not literally), it takes guts and will power to get back up and try again, which is inspirational to any person from any walk of life who wants to persue anything that feels right to them.