IT was a ‘five star’ performance at the weekend as Mark Watson and five fellow comedians had the audience in stitches at this year’s Taunton Comedy Festival.

The Mock the Week funnyman was part of a show bursting with comical talent from the across the country, and a few from the South West.

Mark, of course, stole the show as headline act for the evening with a 45 minute set that had the marquee tent rocking with laughter. The ‘yelling at dropped coins in a post office’ gag was that funny I was struggling to calm myself from laughing so hard.

Laura Lexx went down a treat with the crowd and, having studied at Bishop Fox’s School, it was nice to see an act that knew the area and could relate to the audience. She was bubbly, cheeky and, above all, absolutely hilarious.

The first act of the night was Australian Yanni Agisilaou, who got the crowd warmed up with some very funny jokes about 12.5% food taxes in London and having a good old laugh at nearby neighbours New Zealand – all hands on deck, you had to be there. It was clear from his performance that this would be a great night of comedy.

Rob Hughes’ Facebook joke about his sister-in-law was relevant to so many of us who have ‘those’ sort of people on our social network friends list which led to a roar of laughter and applause.

Sam Carrington had a certain swagger about him as he walked around the stage and fans particularly liked his joke on reading out phone numbers to set amount of digits, we’ve all been there.

Who could forget MC Geoff Whiting who did a grand job of presenting each act on stage and spent the majority of the night making fun of ‘mini man’ in the audience.

The venue wasn’t completely sold out, though there has recently been the Rod Stewart concert and it was a Sunday, but event organiser Trish Caller has promised next year’s festival will be “bigger and better” with plans for more top comedians over the course of two weeks.