"I can just see the headlines in the local paper," Johnny Vegas ranted, "'Audience Walks Out On Vegas.'"

Like a stampede, but then it was gone midnight and Johnny was drinking coke with a twist of lemon in it, sliced with vodka. You could pretend, he said, it was a bit of a posh-do what with the twist.

Fair do's - he warned us at the start he'd drank a bottle of vodka and it would kick in at some point. The thing is, it turned into a bit like closing time, when the drunks think it's funny, but you're the driver.

The Hovis Memorial Tribute at Bolton Albert Halls last night had a whole host of comedians, Phil Cool, John Shuttleworth, and a sweetly funny Badly Drawn Boy, who admitted that in any gig he did with comedians, he always came out the funniest.

Fittingly it ended on Vegas. Presley and Vegas always went well together - although I'm talking Elvis. To be fair, Johnny started off hilariously, he didn't fall back on standard jokes, pre-rehearsed, but just stood there and adlibbed, with glimpses of genius and aching humour, laugh out loud stuff, before that vodka took it's toll.

But compere, Bob Williamson, was the funniest. Stringing the whole thing together with daft, simple jokes - like going to a yoga class and having to do the splits. "Are you flexible?" the teacher asked? "I can't do Tuesdays."

Badly Drawn Boy was sweet and soulful and tiny. Phil Cool did a cool Wallace and Gromit impression and John Shuttleworth stole the night with his ode to shepherd's pie followed by treacle pud and the heartache of not being able to go back for seconds once you've started on your dessert - there's no going back to savoury.

As a tribute it worked. Vegas was full of anger, getting the subdued audience on its feet, trying to get a posse together to push over a car. He wanted to do something memorable for Hovis. He said he was Batman to Hovis's Robin, and like the caped crusader, he wanted action - because it's not what you are underneath, it's what you do that counts.

Although, Vegas admitted, Hovis would have sat through the whole thing silently. He was a man who hated the limelight. And, like any real tribute, the gatherers were left thinking, he should have been there, he would have loved it.

The rumoured' Peter Kay never showed (or gave up after Vegas kept going Ken Dodd style - Bob Williamson even swept the stage behind him and it was Badly Drawn Boy who eventually told him to wrap it up, to a rendition of New York, New York).

A bizarre night, hit and miss, but full of warmth and humanity too. And there were a few celebs in the audience to spot at the interval (some bloke from Holby City and some bloke from a sitcom).

Vegas, in all his rambling humour summed up Hovis's slim volume of poetry perfectly, titled Poetic Off Licence.