Last night I went back to The Comedy Works, dowtown, for an evening of stand-up comedy. Relax, I was in the audience, not on the stage.

Not that I wouldn't mind having a go at stand-up comedy, if I had the material, and the balls to stand there. My years of acting experience would enable me to get up there, but once there, then what? No script or character to hide behind with stand-up.

The Comedy Works is your archetypical comedy venue, in a downtown basement, with black walls, and seating with all the room of economy-class airline seating, and $5+ pints of beer

As usual the host for the evening was a local guy who did a spot of stand-up comedy before introducing the first act.

There was then a stream of four comedians, interspersed with our genial host, reminding us to tip the waitresses, although after one of them told us there was a "two-drink minimum", the only urge to tip her, was over a cliff. That said, I managed three - just to show willing.

All but one of the four supporting acts were funny.

The only one that didn’t make me laugh was Stephanie McHugh a regular at the Store, who's act centers around being a stay-at-home-mom. It wasn't because I don't identify with that lifestyle that I didn't find her funny. I just found myself thinking of material she could do that would have made me laugh, about the trials and tribulations of motherhood and/or soccer-momness. I guess it's easy to think of stuff, when you don't have to actually get up there and do it.

Next up, David Gray was a mild mannered and softly spoken guy with an easy-going nature.

He did some great humour, with a local flavour. I particularly liked the stuff about being stoned in the 'burbs of the greater Denver Metro area. This segwayed nicely into a little bit about SUVs, which had us all crying with laughter. I think it was mainly the image of someone having a such a big SUV that if they painted it yellow they'd be able to take retarded children to school, that made me almost spurt beer out of my nose. His impression of a retarded child on the bus, saying, "Ooh the Eddie Bauer Edition, I love the Fun Pack." made even the most PC members of the audience guffaw.

He was followed by a Latino comedian, a Colorado native, who made us all laugh. I passed on his comment, "My mother was Irish, my father was a Chicano, so I guess that makes me a Lephrecano.", to my Irish roommate.

The last of the support acts, a former warm-up man for Greg Kinnear (host of Later with Greg Kinnear). Try as I might, neither I, nor the friend that I went with, can remember the guy’s name. A lot of Internet searching has revealed and equal lack of clues.

Anyway, the guy was funny. Originally from New Hampshire, he's recently moved from L.A. to Denver. Anyone in the Western United States would identify with some of his material however. My favourite bits were his tirade against Qwest, and his description of 'coming out' to his insane farmer father. And I quote, "so I say 'Dad, I'm gay', and my day says 'aint nothing wrong with a guy getting corn-holed a couple of times, son. How do you think I met your mother?'". Bizarre!

And then there was the headline act, Kathleen Madigan, an award winning comedian.

She did about an hour. Frankly, it seemed like more than an hour, but not because it was boring. No, it seemed like longer because I didn't stop laughing the whole time she was on stage.

She was, without a doubt, the best female comedian I have seen in years, possibly ever.

One thing I realised afterwards was that she differed from the majority of female comedians in one important way. She didn't do gender-specific comedy, and she didn't bash men.

I've lost count of the number of times I've had to sit through female comedians going on and on and on about, "Hey, ladies, you know when you're having your period, but you want to wear thong underwear?"

Not that I'm offended or upset by such material, I just can't relate to it. Not only that, but it's all been done before. I just want to say to comediennes doing that stuff, "OK, you menstruate. I'm real happy for you. Now can we please, move the fuck on, and think of some new material?"

Kathleen Madigan, however, did none of this. She got on with face-paced and witty comedy that everyone, regardless of chromosomes, could relate to.

I was captivated. Two of the biggest things that attract me to a woman, are brains and humour. Kathleen had both.

In addition to making me laugh harder than any other woman walking this earth has done, I noticed some of her delivery involved the exact same kind of assides towards the audience that some of my comedic stage performances have involved. I guess this made me feel like we had something in common.

She covered a wide range of subjects, but I was too busy clutching my sides and deafening the poor man next to me with my guffawing, to remember any of them, save for "British soccer fans were banned from the World Cup for being too drunk. You know it's bad when the rest of the world is telling you, you drink too much.".

There was other stuff, and I feel just terrible, that I can't remember enough details to make it a good read.

I've been sitting on this damn article for over 24-hours, and if I don't stop now, and post it for you, one of us is going to lose it. I'm just hoping it's not me.