Karen Koren: Guess Who's coming to Xmas dinner

This week I took my lovely staff at Gilded Balloon out for our annual Christmas dinner. We actually had quite a good haul of Secret Santa presents this year – some gifts a tad unprintable here, but all-in-all, very thoughtful and funny.

We normally have a Christmas lunch but because we have shows on this week it had to be dinner, which can become a lot more wild.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the night escalated for some of our younger members of staff, as a few came in the following morning looking a little rough around the edges!As it’s the final week before Christmas, we have a fabulous run of The Christmas Comedy Show at the Basement Theatre for you.

Kicking off at 7.30pm tonight, tomorrow and Saturday, The Christmas Comedy Show is a special, festive edition of our flagship comedy line-up night.

Go on, treat yourself and your loved ones to some booze and big belly laughs while you still can!

The wonderful, Glasgow-based comic Ray Bradshaw will be your host each evening, and he’ll be joined by Eddy Brimson, Will Duggan and the incredibly popular and hysterical Gary Little.

Ray’s a personal favourite of mine at the moment; this year he set the Fringe ablaze with a cleverly constructed show that was a proper first for the Fringe – and the larger comedy world, in general – as he became the first-ever comic to perform his stand-up show in spoken English while simultaneously signing it in British Sign Language. It was a lovely piece and quite rightly drew him critical acclaim.

It must be said, I am quite looking forward to the holidays. I’m ready to put my feet up, see my family and play some relaxing games

Other than eating lots and spending time with my kids and grandchildren this Christmas, I’ll also make sure that I tune in to the Doctor Who Christmas special – or, the final five minutes, at least – there’s no way that I’m passing up the opportunity to see the first female Doctor in action.

Here’s hoping you all have a very Merry Christmas!