THERE'S something deliciously brutal about stand-up comedy.
Like a gladiatorial fight to the death, it is the audience not the performer who has the final say about who lives to laugh another day and who is heckled unceremoniously off stage in disgrace.
The Greenwich Comedy Festival's colosseum-like Big Top therefore seemed an appropriate setting for last night's showdown between some of the comedy circuit's heavyweights.
Starting around 30 minutes late, with some punters left having to stand or sit on the stairs - due, presumably, to overbooking - it was a tough crowd.
Fortunately, Geordie compere Chris Ramsey's ease with the slightly disgruntled crowd calmed the angry storm brewing and confidently sailed the ship to calmer seas, making way for the first act.
Sauntering on stage like a drunk looking for his bottle, Irish comic Andrew Maxwell's routine flipped predictably from gags about the miserable weather in Ireland to digs at the Pope and Tony Blair.
With long, uncomfortable pauses, his delivery was a little off at times and some of the material felt shakily improvised.
Fortunately, when he did hit the spot, it was orgasmic and an irreverent tale about the death of a trainer at Sea World at the hands of one of its whales ended in an unexpected belly laugh at the expense of the church.
After describing how the whale was moved from centre to centre after it kept killing its trainers, he said: “You can't keep moving it and hope the problem goes away. It's a serial killer whale, not a Catholic priest.”
But Maxwell felt more like a warm-up act to the now veteran of the comedy circuit Richard Herring.
Polished but never contrived, Herring is a natural funnyman, oozing wit and intelligence, as well as a knack for knowing his audience.
After lifting the roof with a visually brilliant and gloriously depraved gag on the inaccuracy of childhood hand gestures for gay and lesbian sex, he fell a little flat with a rant about the pronunciation of the word potato and its bizarre translation into French.
So, it was back into the gutter for the final third of his act, discussing the snortingly hilarious ramifications of following the instructions on an Aussie jogger's novelty T-Shirt - “Give me head 'till I'm dead.”
Far too often, by the time the headliner comes on, the crowd are so sozzled from boozing during the two intervals between acts they'll laugh at anything.
It's a fact some stand-ups rely on, delivering a lazy routine of half-baked jokes and cliched observations, knowing his audience will be easier to please.
While Stephen K Amos rehashed much of his old material from previous tours, he effortlessly mixed it with the new, making his routine feel as fresh and alive as it was the first time round.
From anecdotes about growing up as the only black kid in class to gags about a racist Australian cheese, Amos deftly draws on his cultural background, as well as his sexuality, for laughs.
And fortunately, the laughs come big, loud and generously.
If handled wrong, tackling touchy subjects such as racism can alienate an audience but his devilish charm, warmth and razor-sharp wit meant the honour of headlining the evening was thoroughly deserved.
Perhaps Amos stayed on stage a little longer than he should have, with his material increasingly running out of steam and his fidgety audience losing patience, but in the battle of the stand-ups, he easily blew the competition away.
All hail the new king of the Greenwich Comedy Festival – Stephen K Amos.
Greenwich Comedy Festival runs at the Old Royal Naval College until Sunday. For the full line-up and to book tickets, visit greenwichcomedyfestival.co.uk
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