Comedian with the X Factor

Some comics think it is cheating to go on stage armed with anything other than your wits.

But for guitar-playing funnyman Mitch Benn there's no shame in taking a little six-stringed help with you to even odd the odds.

"Some comedians think it's only pure stand-up when it's just you versus the audience," says the 38-year-old Liverpudlian.

"But the way I look at it, everything is cheating. Using your talent is cheating, using any advantage you've got is cheating. It's not different to bringing a guitar on stage, it's just making the most of what you've got. I suppose some people might say it's a gimmick, but what isn't a gimmick? Being funny is a gimmick."

Mitch's satirical song-smithery will be a familiar sound to anybody who listens to Radio Two's comedy output. Hailing more from the musical tradition that gave us people such as Billy Connolly, Mike Harding and Richard Digance and less from the trendy, political, funnymen he grew up with, his music-led stand-up has often made him stand-out from the comedy crowd.

He's been a regular performer on the station's The Now Show and It's Been A Bad Week for nearly a decade treating audiences to his razor-sharp compositions taking the mickey out of everything from Dick Rowe, the man who turned down The Beatles, to arch atheist Richard Dawkins and The X Factor.

His latest series of live dates, dubbed the Sing Like An Angel Tour which stops off at the inaugural Bridlington Musicport Festival this weekend, even takes its name from a painfully funny track he wrote delving into the mind of a deluded X Factor contestant.

"I'm very proud of that song," says Mitch. "In the early stages that show is pretty much a freak show. It's like in the old days when the warders used to let rich people in to laugh at the mentally ill patients in Bedlam.

"What I tried to do is write a song from the contestant's point of view. Of how they think they've got a great entertainer inside that no-one else can see."

Despite being voted one of the 365 most culturally important Scousers in a poll taken as part of the west coast city's Capital Of Culture tenure, Mitch has never played to his Liverpudlian roots.

"Yeah, I think they struggled after they got past the top 10 most cultured Scousers," he laughs. "I think the sound of a barrel being scraped might have been heard when they picked me out. No, I've never really made a big deal out of it. I've never been a 'scouse' comedian talking about being from Liverpool. I'm not ashamed of my roots but it never really came up. I was always just too busy singing songs and doing my music stuff."

Mitch Benn will be performing at Musicport 2008, at Bridlington Spa, South Marine Drive, Bridlington, on Saturday, October 18, at 9.30pm, when he will be one of a dozen world music acts all taking to the stage throughout the course of the night.

The event is the ninth annual Musicport festival but the first to be held in Bridlington after relocating 40 miles down the coast from its previous home in Whitby.

The festival starts on Friday with a headlining performance from Brighton folk punks The Levellers and climaxes on Sunday night with a live show from Mr Do You Know What It Is Yet-himself, Rolf Harris.

During the course of the three-day festival more than 50 major stars of the world music scene including Malian kora-player Toumani Diabate, West Papua's Lani Singers, blind Indian sitar guru Baluji Shrivastav and Bulgarian party band Ivo Papasov and his Wedding Band, will all take to the stage.

Tickets vary in price depending on what day and event you want to attend but entry to the evening session featuring Mitch Benn costs £27 adult/£24 concessions and £14 for under 18s. Visit the website for more details.