Tom Allen's Society, Udderbelly Festival London

The purple cow has taken up its summer residency on the South Bank in London before making the journey to the Edinburgh Fringe in August. As ever, the line-up of performers is extensive: last night comic Tom Allen performed his chat show with the help of a few comedy guests.

Allen is a likeable presence on stage and gave the audience 15 minutes of stand-up, with jokes old and new, before he brought on his guests. Walking across the stage, he unwisely tried a rock 'n' roll moment when, Eddie van Halen-like, he thrust a leg on to an onstage amp, before realising the implausibility of such a dapper man trying to look so macho. “”Oops, that doesn't suit me at all.” He also did some interaction with the audience - not always his strong point - and he found a woman who offered up the information that her day had included getting a bikini wax. “Did it hurt?” he asked, clearly not a hirsute man, or perhaps one who has never watched an episode of TOWIE.

His first guest was Sarah Millican, always good value and who herself recently became a chat show host on television. Allen joked that trying to get one himself was the only reason he was doing this show, although he has a point: he has the warmth and the quick wit needed to make a success of the form.

They nattered away like the old friends they are and talked about a range of things, including the Olympics, which Millican remains flatly unimpressed by. 'It's advanced PE,” she said, with a trademark curl of the lip, “I didn't like those people at school and I'm not going to like them now.”

Next up was Preston Nyman (pictured right), a graduate of Comedy 4 Kids, a comedy club for children (and whom you may know from 3^rd and Bird and Ben and Holly), who did five minutes of stand-up. He has an astonishing confidence on stage, even if his material isn't show-stopping - but then, at 14, what life experience do you have to write comedy about? Even more astonishingly, he is writing a full-length show that he is taking to the Edinburgh Fringe in August.

Last on the sofa was Milton Jones, king of the surrealist one-liner and regular guest on Mock the Week, who here was pleasingly conversational and self-deprecating. He and Millican shared notes on those comics who are always “on” (ie as boring as hell because they can't stop telling jokes), while here he was “off” and had interesting and funny things to say about earning a living in the comedy industry. He reeled off a list of corporate events he has presented awards at “...Rawlplug of the year, station announcer of the year...” He performs in the cow tonight.

• Udderbelly Festival London continues until 8 July