In group shows and as a double act, Brian Mitchell and David Mounfield have provided Brighton with its most prolific and popular comedy partnership.

But now they're going head-to-head in a one-off double bill which will see both men perform their new solo shows.

Mitchell's, entitled Billion Dollar Brian, is an anarchic collection of sketches, songs and monologues featuring a retired colonel, a cabinet minister and an unconfirmed number of Anglican vicars.

Mounfield's I Am A Charles Kennedy is an autobiographical piece about his experiences as Britain's only - and yet worst - Charles Kennedy lookalike.

Mitchell has called Mounfield a fat, pie-eating charlatan. Mounfield has called Mitchell a drunken, pompous ass. Who'll have the last laugh?

Brian Mitchell
"I've always been the Jerry Desmond to Dave's Norman Wisdom - I'm Mr Stern and he's Mr Showbusiness. But this show is about the part of me which is Mr Showbusiness and hates himself for it.

I'll be conjuring a whole world using just my talent and a pair of glasses. And eight other people - it's the biggest one-man show in history.

"There's no subtlety whatsoever in my characterisation. Mine is a netherworld of frosty retired colonels and I don't really have the desire to update these figures in any way. Oh, and there's a finale where everything spirals out of control and ends in a stage invasion.

I love anarchic stage invasions.

"I think I've got a tad more dignity than Dave - just a little bit more.

Dave perversely prides himself on doing anything, no matter how cheap, within the acting world. For instance that wig is incredibly cheap - £2 tops. I just don't want to disgrace myself - that's about the level of my ambition.

"I'm not really bothered about whooping Dave's ass. In fact I want his show to go well 'cos he's on first and I need an audience for mine."

Dave Mounfield
"I think Brian was keen to do a one-man show when he realised that, actually, not everybody hated him. I just want to tell people about this very odd thing that's happened to me.

"Four and a bit years ago, just before the last general election, my agent got me a job on Channel 5 doing some skits dressed vaguely as Charles Kennedy.

When the show went out I got a call from a look-alike agency. I'd cornered the market - by accident I'd got myself the gig as the only Charles Kennedy look-alike in Britain.

"I don't look anything like him, I just put on a ginger wig and an offensively bad Scottish accent. But I generally find the less effort I make the more attention I get. I've been in the national papers, on Have I Got News For You and Richard And Judy - Judy said I looked more like a cross between Edwina Curry and Billy Bunter.

"Being a Charles Kennedy has landed me in some very bizarre situations.

In the 2001 election, I took part in an event at Bluewater shopping estate to guage the relative popularity of the party leaders by having members of the public throw eggs at their look-alikes.

"No one egged me and to this day, I don't know whether that's because they liked Charles Kennedy or because they didn't realise who I was supposed to be."