CHRISTMAS is a good time for a good laugh, so get your giggles in early with the last Funny Farm of the year.

Wivenhoe’s Festive Funny Farm takes place tonight with another rip-snorter of a line-up headlined by Paul Foot, who has been described as the missing link between Ross Noble and Frankie Howerd.

One of the comedy world’s true eccentrics, Paul Foot is a surreal and flamboyant one-off whose inspired rantings turn the mundane into the magical, often taking off into twisted flights of fantasy which leave his audiences half in a dreamworld and half in tears of laughter.

A regular on such television and radio programmes as Rob Brydon’s Annually Retentive, the Stand Up Show and Radio 2’s Out to Lunch, he was the BBC’s New Comedy Award Winner in 1997 and a Perrier Newcomer Nominee the following year.

Super support comes in the funny forms of Wendy Wason, who flits between acting with the likes of Johnny Depp and John Malkovich to gigs in comedy clubs all over the country, and Richard Sandling, the winner of the Edinburgh Fringe’s So You Think You’re Funny award last year.

Also on the bill is the brilliantly funny Iszi Lawrence and master of comedy ceremonies Tony Cowards.

Doors open at 7pm at the Wivenhoe Football Club, in Broad Lane, with the show starting an hour later. Admission is £5 on the door and £3.50 for concessions.

Also worth noting for the new year is another move for the Colchester Funny Farm, which went from The Bull in Crouch Street to The Grapes on Mersea Road and now has relocated rather amusingly to Wivenhoe as well.

It takes place upstairs at the Greyhound pub in High Street, Wivenhoe, on January 13, with a bill that includes Gary Delaney, Aaron Counter and Liz Stephens.