Re-creating the clowning, clubhouse atmosphere of a 1960s Ratpack TV get-together in a contemporary stage show is no simple task. But comedian-impresario Paul F, Tompkins accomplishes that every month in Hollywood’s hippest little variety show. Headquartered at Largo Club, The Paul F. Tompkins Show carries its packed houses of industry regulars into a “Look who dropped by!” revue reminiscent of Dean Martin’s 1960s TV hangouts.

A veteran of L.A.’s alternative-comedy movement, which spawned, among others, the careers of Janeane Garofalo and Margaret Cho and HBO’s Mr. Show, Tompkins holds court in a style incarnating the jovial elegance of Hollywood past. “What I loved about old Hollywood when I was a kid,” says Tompkins, 34, “is that it just seemed like fun.”

Freely mixing music and comedy, each show features Tompkins joining musical guests (such as luminary Largoites Michael Penn, Fiona Apple, Grant Lee Phillips, and Colin Hay) for a “fuckaround festival,” breaking up a duet of traditional song—“Oh, Brother, Can You Spare a Dime” performed with Aimee Mann, for example—with improvised goof-offs and commentary. “It’s all very incestuous in the very best possible way,” says Tompkins.

The show’s comedy segments blend sagas of industry frustrations with bizarro inventions in the tradition of Monty Python. Guests including Dave Foley, Andy Richter, and Laura Kightlinger deliver insidery confessionals alongside the show’s Fancytown Players, whose bits veer from re-enactments of dentist commercials from Mexican TV to a rendition by Jack Black of the lyrics to the Star Trek theme song. And bringing the show to a fitting, bizarrely elegant close, each performance screeches to an abrupt halt when Tompkins is ritually murdered while singing “Danny Boy.”