COMEDY, like everything else, is a bit thin on the ground this time of year, what with the stand ups decamping to Edinburgh and most of the theatres dark for most of the month.

(Except for the Royal Court, where Eight Miles High (starring Keith Carter among others) still has a few days to go and which I'm checking out tonight - but then again, turns out one of their mid-August Rawhides has been cancelled - what's going on?!).

So, we're reduced to snooping around the net and checking up on how things are going North of the border for our Scouse brethren.

As usual, the Guardian's coverage of Edinburgh is superb, but it has a tendency to focus on more worthy entertainment (a review of a naked play about Jews being gassed in Auschwitz caught my attention the other day). The Scotsman, too, has it all covered thoroughly, as you'd expect.

But so far, the only one of our natives I've been able to find anything out about is John Bishop, who's taken his show Cultural Ambassador up to Bonnie Scotland.

Although being praised for his charm (tick) and his way with a rambling tale (tick), I was amazed to hear him being described as "smug" by one reviewer. Perhaps I've been too wrapped up in the Scouse love to notice how his act must come across to outsiders. "There is a thinly veiled arrogance which is slightly off putting," says Corrie Shaw of Chortle.co.uk. Very interesting...

Sarah Millican's Not Nice, one of those shows I had a feeling in my water I should have caught at the Liverpool Comedy Festival earlier this year, is a four star-er on the same site. But back at the Graun, Reginald D Hunter's formula seems to be raising eyebrows again, and not because he's being any good. Odd.

So the Liverpool massive is a bit thin on the ground over wherever you look, it seems. Where's all the comedy gone?

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