AS INSPIRATION for comedy goes, sitting in a cabaret club with a coachload of pensioners cannot rank too highly on the list.

But as the song goes 'Life is a cabaret, old chum, come to the cabaret, old chum' and Pippa Evans has a lot of pensioner holiday experience.

After the success of last year's Edinburgh festival, where the 26-year-old was nominated in the Best Newcomer category in the If.Comedy awards with her show Pippa Evans and Other Lonely People, she has decided to use her experiences to comic effect.

She said: “The idea for the show came from taking lots of old ladies on holiday which was my old job.

“I found there were a lot of people working in the cabaret bars who wished they were somewhere else so it's kind of about disappointment really.”

Pippa added: “I went on holiday with old people at new year and there was a cabaret singer who was really talented and really brilliant but he was doing the same show every night for three nights to the same people and obviously the people left because they'd heard it all before.

“It was just so horrible to watch this incredibly talented man just slowly dissolving into himself.

“It's probably what I fear the most - the fact that I might end up in a hotel cabaret bar on the Isle of Wight just crying into my porridge.”

Strangely enough I cannot imagine any of the characters in Pippa's show being big fans of the oaty stuff for their breakfast.

Northern cabaret singer Julie Mansize is more likely to start her day with gin. Feisty man eater/ hater Loretta Maine is definitely a steak and eggs (hold the eggs) kind of gal while Amangela would undoubtedly be working her way through some biscuits.

And stalker Derek is probably too busy hiding in a bush outside Julie's house to have time to eat.

Despite these unrelated breakfast choices they are all linked together by their desperation: “They are all trying to get out of something that they don't want to be in any more.

“The main character is Julie Mansize who has killed her husband out of desperation because he was always the star so there is that thing of what lengths would you go to get to where you want to be,” she said.

For Pippa it is the back story of how the characters came to be in the dilapidated cabaret club which makes them truly interesting.

It is important for her that the audience understands their motivations as the show draws to its climax.

She said: “You could just come on and do four different characters and that would be fine but I feel it's nice to feel like you get a story.

“I'd rather people come out going 'that was really funny but argh what a terrible life to lead' or something and for the show to have a bit more to it than 'ooh she said cock'.”

Pippa Evans: Your Evening's Entertainment. The Albany, Deptford, July 29. Call 020 8692 4446.