The most continually entertaining, and certainly longest-running, is comedian Robin Ince's no-sleep-till-Monday Book Club. Known for shows that can go on for as long as man continues to draw breath, Ince clearly relishes his three-day near-residency as the mainstay of the Literary Arena. As ever the Club features Ince's bitingly sardonic recitals of excerpts from terrible fiction ("Crabs!"), interspersed with the usual cavalcade of charmingly offbeat variety acts.

Early highlights include Philip Jeays' Brel-tinged melodramic chansons; Waen Shepherd's hilariously dark portrayal of an acid-fried Brian Wilson clone ("I Dig Diggers!"); and Martin White's witty and whimsical accordion-led Mystery Fax Machine Orchestra.

More established figures of comedy and writing pop in and out - Guardian scribe Jon Ronson brings his slightly unnerving accent to bear on a 70s manual on how to seduce underage girls, and more worryingly, allows his 10-year old son to headline the tent three nights on the trot playing abortive Nirvana covers.

Other highlights - there are many - include bitingly sardonic comedian Stewart Lee describing the festival as "Mean Fiddler's answer to Stoke Newington. Diligently constructed to make middle class people feel countercultural" and remarkably filthy West Country girl Bridget Christie comparing Jesus to a dog. As you do. We could go on, but our editors will kill us. Needless to say, backstage at the Literary tent was the best party we couldn't get into, even with press wristbands.

Meanwhile, over at the Theatre Tent (a meticulously constructed, er, tent with some benches in) backlash theatre company Nabokov captures the passionately independent feel of the festival as a whole with John Donnelly's Corporate Rock, a caustic take on an ad agency's ruthless manipulation and destruction of a young rock star. This is raw, bleeding satire: the ad men rapaciously unearthing and gobbling up coolness to sell a mysteriously unnamed product.

Unsurprisingly for a play set in an ad agency boardroom, it's possibly the sweariest piece of theatre ever performed. Little light relief followed from uber-trendy theatre the Royal Court's performances of Mark Ravenhill's epic cycle Shoot /Get Treasure/Repeat. "Wash your vagina!" one actor cries. "You're a cunt!" shouts another. Stewards look worried. Middle-class parents cover their children's ears and march them out in their droves, muttering apologies for treading on toes "but it's just not suitable, you know." Excellent family entertainment.

One of the festival's most enduring problems is that, after a rapid doubling of tickets after the first year's successes, it becomes impossible to get anywhere near an act in a smaller tent unless you've camped out for three hours before. This isn't helped by fans' insistence on sitting down at any given moment, meaning that while 400 people get to see Bill Bailey in the Comedy Tent in complete comfort, the 2,000 outside the tent have to make do with half heard words carried on the breeze.

From what we can hear, Bailey is good but not near his own sky-high standards - relying on Wurzels gags which, despite being better than 90% of comedians working today, seem a little tame. Tame can't be used to describe acerbic American Rich Hall, whose drunken ramblings are punctuated with actual bodily threats against hecklers and a man who has the temerity to leave halfway through. It's hilarious, and just as he is about to be dragged offstage, his closing gambit "As an American, I'd just like to say how sorry I am for everything" provokes an ovation - of sorts.

Simon Evans is the comedian that Jimmy Carr should be. What, buried up to his head in concrete, I hear you ask? No, it's more that he adopts a similarly cold, cruel Middle England persona (taking a pop at the working class, the homeless, the unemployed, teenagers) but - crucially - is funny with it. It's probably because his persona - squinty eyes, Reggie Perrin voice, schoolmasterly bearing - is so ludicrously anachronistic that he gets away with it.

Continued...

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