Dylan Moran dazzles at Brighton's Live at the Dome

Boasting line ups that would make TV panel show bookers swoon, Live at the Dome has become the city’s best comedy night.

The show on December 14 was nominally the Christmas Special but didn’t have much to do with Crimbo, although was obviously infinitely preferable to plodding round Churchill Square trying not to cry at the now insane prices.

A slightly lop-sided show featured Maisie Adam, Larry Dean and Janine Harouni in the first half, followed by Dylan Moran and Nina Conti, with Masie Adam taking on MC duties.

The latter was more than adequate at the always challenging task of whipping up a crowd the size of the Dome’s.

It’s no surprise that the charismatic Adam was a comfortable host, her relaxed homespun delivery lends itself well to crowd-work, and her responses were rapid.

The fact the Yorkshire-born comic is now a Brighton resident also helped, on balance we agreed with her antipathy towards Hove but not her verdict on the nearby Black Horse, which, for the record, is a perfectly sound pub with rather spiffing Guinness.

First up was the lively and energetic Larry Dean, a young Scottish comic with a penchant for accent and gurney faces.

Bouncy and likeable, we’re likely to see more of him, after all, who doesn’t like a Scot doing a posh English voice.

New Yorker Janine Harouni has stage-craft a plenty and seemed at home in front of the large midweek crowd.

There was some good stuff about the absurdity of some Irish names but she didn’t exactly crank it up, perhaps she was saving her best material for when she returns to Brighton in February (at the Dome’s Studio Theatre).

Conversely, Dylan Moran slot was full of ideas and scattershot material, delivered in his trademark throwaway slightly shambolic style.

It was wonderful to see him performing live again and he’s lost none of his singular charm and searing observational power.

He’s still tackling the absurd and is seemingly on top of an ongoing existential tussle.

Although it was curious to see he wasn’t top of the bill in a venue he’s filled many times before.

The headliner was instead Nina Conti who has sharpened up an already funny ventriloquist act, throwing her voice to a stage-full of willing punters and coming up with some good lines along the way.