Although Devizes Festival is in full swing, it does not have the monopoly on high-quality professional entertainment in the area.

Easterton village hall, which has recently signed up to Rural Arts Wiltshire, welcomed the Bournemouth-based entertainer Mervyn Stutter last Saturday night.

There, an audience of around 80 sat at tables in a cabaret format and they were very soon enjoying Mr Stutter’s snappy and topical humour.

He had already circulated among the audience and the feeling was very much relaxed and informal. Mr Stutter is not just funny. He is, in parts, inspired but there is more to him than a stand-up routine.

Eventually he picks up his guitar and plays some brilliantly funny parody songs with titles like Cowboy Plastic Surgeons, Men Like Sheds and The Menopausal Soldier.

Copies of his CD, Songs for Menopausal Flower Children, were on sale at the end of the show.

Mr Stutter makes much of the fact that he is just the wrong side of 60 but age has not wearied him.

It was interesting to compare his act to that of well-known TV star Mark Steel at Devizes Corn Exchange a few days’ before.

I have to say that with Mr Steel I did not have that ache in the solar plexus from laughing too much that I had after Mr Stutter’s performance.

Rural Arts Wiltshire signatories should definitely mark their programmes against his name for future reference.