Their partnership was actually born during their spell with the Bootlegs, the sketch troop equivalent of the manufactured pop group. Four members chosen from random with the sole purpose of taking a show up to the Edinburgh festival. From day one there was chemistry between Steve and Tom which was evident to anyone who saw the Bootlegs during the past two years. The group comprised of Tom and Steve alongside Robbie Pointer and Zeron Gibson. Last years show may have been the final straw for all four members. Robbie and Zeron have their own solo projects and Tom and Steve also starred in their first hour long show as a double act. The Bootlegs obtained mediocre reviews and none of the four really did themselves justice.

"We sort of made a mistake doing two shows," says Tom, "because it's really too much work. It was really hectic and our heart wasn't really in it, working on both of them." The Bootlegs disbanded after the festival and since then, Tom and Steve are going from strength to strength. "We just had sort of different styles in the sketch show. It's a great way to get started and we got greater experience from doing it, and that was fun. But the Bootlegs was just a sort of main stream idea and we like to be a bit stranger. We like to wear women's clothes..." says Tom still wearing lipstick from a previous sketch.

Sitting downstairs in the Canal Café Theatre in London, Steve and Tom seem very relaxed and not too bothered that our presence in the audience had doubled the turn-out. Still they went on stage and gave it their all. "It was a personal show and that was great. But having said that, we don't really want to play to four people. It would be a pretty grim career if we were doing that," notes Tom. They are very positive and determined to achieve all they are capable of and Comedy Lounge is tipping them for greatness. They carry off their performance with an undeniable charm and with such constant entheusiasm that you can't help but laugh. Continually demolishing the fourth wall, they step in and out of character giving knowing winks to the audience. The gags fly thick and fast, barely giving the audience a chance to keep up. There's no denying that they're very funny. So what drives them on to pursue such an unpredictable career?

"It feels incredibly good," says Tom. "It's an amazing feeling when it works. Even when it's just a small audience like tonight's, when you hear people laughing, it's probably an ego thing at the end of the day." Not at all. These two are more modest than most comics would be given their talents.

Paying little notice to reviews, they maintain that all you can do is do your best. "It's not something that we've ever worried about really. Never bothered to find out who's coming in to see the show and all that type of thing. There's no point in doing that. It's all been pretty favourable so far anyway."

Steve and Tom aren't new to performing. Steve was a singer and lead guitarist in the Majestic Clean Machine for a few years before they split. "I love singing," says Steve, "I think singing is brilliant in comedy, and people don't do it enough. Stand up comedians that do sets about their girlfriends should sing songs as well. It's great." He stumbled from the band into comedy and found he progressed faster than in the music business and also found it more enjoyable. "We've got lots of props, but it's nothing compared to lugging a drum kit or a big PA up some stairs in a shitty pub in Camden."

Meanwhile Tom was studying Fine Art in Sheffield and then came down to London to perform his own character, Tommy Fate, which he did for a year. "I think your art training makes you good at doing the dog like characters," says Steve sarcastically. "Have you noticed how good he is at doing the animals?" Steve is referring to Old Shep who takes the stage in their show with Elvis and then dives into the audience and proceeds to start shagging some poor girl's leg. You'd have to see it.

But not all of their ideas make it onto the stage and for good reason as Steve explains. "I dreamt about the autobiography of Brad Pitt which was called 'Lung Hill'. Starring me as Brad Pitt and Tom as Keanu Reeves. It was something about prawns and going down to the sea side, with Keanu Reeves as a prawn fisherman." This must have proved a little too hard to translate to the stage. "And then there was a bit about this beast fish of Matapahaway which looks like Lovejoy. I thought that was funny. We did it twice." But it wasn't the lack of laughs the sketch got which stopped them using it in their show, it was Tom's unwillingness to perform it. A wise decision from the sound of it.

"Steve's also got an obsession about doing a sketch on skis, in a big furry coat. We did it once and I was supposed to be standing there waving, just standing on stage and he was supposed to ski past me to 'pass the dutchie on the left hand side', you know that song? It didn't really work." The mysterious disappearance of one of the skis put paid to that one. "Steve thought it was brilliant."

Anyone who has had the pleasure to see Oram and Meeten will no doubt be a fan of their most famous sketch, "What's In The Bag?" It is a sketch-come-game which basically involves Steve hitting Tom over the head with a tasteless red hand bag coupled with the hit theme tune which is becoming a cult song amongst comedy fans.

Steve explains, "I was really pissed and my mate, who is not a very funny man, wanted to do some comedy so I said I'd write him a set. I said, 'why don't you just go on stage and hold a handbag out and shout "What's in the bag? What's in the bag? What's in the bag?" for about two minutes', which he never did." Which is just as well because I doubt he would have been able to perform it with the comic timing and vigour it is performed with by Steve and Tom. Strangely enough, it was Tom's idea for Steve to hit him over the head with the bag, "I don't know why. Actually, I meant to tell you last night, you caught me on the ear. You've made me deaf."

One particular influence on their work is eczema. "I get it quite badly, as you can see from my hands, so obviously this comes out in my work. The pain, the emotion, the feelings. Things like that inside my mind come out in my work, and I wanted to tell the world." This is evident during the Birds and the Bees sketch. Two ageing opera singers , one suffering from eczema and the other afflicted with piles. Tom, also draws from personal experience. "Two years ago I wasn't eating properly, and I did actually get piles and I had to apply Preparation H which is actually made out of shark fins and smells funny. So I put it on my arse." A little too much detail. "I know it's unpleasant but people should know that piles don't really get the publicity they really deserve. If you've got it really bad you'll try anything. You'll rub whatever came to hand on your arse."

Steve and Tom seem to be developing their own fashion. Alan Partridge has Sports Casual, Mrs.Merton has gone for the trendy grandma look and Oram and Meeten seem to have landed somewhere in between, giving the Charity Shop Hand-Me-Down look to the world of fashion. They appear in each sketch sporting different pair of old fashioned women's shoes and ill-fitting suits. They ask us to recommend Age Concern in Shepherds Bush.

They have a very amicable relationship. They hardly ever fight about who plays which character and build their ideas together both on and off stage. "It's because I'm soft," says Tom. "Yeah, he's sort of weak minded, quite easily pliable. It just ends up me getting my way usually and that's the way it is."

Amongst their favourite comedians are Reeves and Mortimer, to whom they have been compared in the past, and Tom in particular is a massive fan of Alan Partridge. "When I started out doing stuff, people used to shout out at gigs 'You're Alan Patridge, stop doing Alan Patridge'. But when you first start I think you get influenced by people and then you tend to go down your own road." These days, however, they don't get to see much live comedy.

Steve and Tom have whored themselves in adverts over the past few years in order to fund what they do for the rest of the time. For other performers they haven't been the best career move and they aren't a lot of fun to do but they do pay well. The first advert Tom did invoved travelling to Budapest for an Italian Pesto advert but as some form of recompense, the second was filmed in Wales. He was portraying a stand up comedian. "I had to die, and I was dying on stage. I had to do it for about five hours. Just dying on stage over and over again and I could just do what I wanted. It was really great. No pressure. I was not really trying to make people laugh, but they were." And the one most of you may remember is the Link advert, directed by Alex Winter from Bill and Ted. That's the one that causes Tom the most embarassment.

Steve did one for Flora. "I was a character in the office. They did these still shots of us in the office and we were all lined up like a school photograph. I was really worried they were going to stick it up on the side of a bus or something. Not very cool. But very very good money." But they'd do it all again. "But nothing with cats, because I'm allergic to cats."

Tom rightly defends their decisions. "At the end of the day, you're making so little money and you're offered these massive fees that would sort out for a year, and pay for Edinburgh and stuff, it makes them very hard to turn down. It's just shit going to commercial castings things, it's just terrible. But at the end of the day, it's just paying for what we really want to do."

Looking to the future Steve says he'd like to emulate Ronnie Barker, "I wanna have a really short-arsed partner, who I can boss around a bit. Who's about 4 ft 10. Something like that." [Tom just keeps saying "right... right..." in a hurt manner]. He'd also like to be an action hero like Brice Willis but funnier. "There's not enough action heroes coming from a comedy background. Like Bruce Willis doesn't have comic timing, but with comic timing..." Tom interrupts, "TV is one of our ambitions, I reckon. I'd like to work with Anthea Turner and Lorraine Kelly" "Tom loves the day time celebrities, and I'm sort of more in to action heroes. That's the difference between us."

And at the moment making a name for themselves in Edinburgh is of utmost importance and Steve and Tom are currently busy developing new characters and sketches. With only a few months to go they are well on their way to creating something special. Their appeal is universal and it would be a travesty not to go and see them if you go to the festival.

Steve acknowledges how manufactured the group were, pointing out that Tom was the gay one. "No, I'm not gay." "The extremely weak one with no attention to detail," continues Steve. "I'm not actually gay. I'm not actually."

"We'll need a copy of this by the way. We'll have to send it to our solicitors."