There may be some truth in that; but also there’s no denying that women are under-represented at almost every level. This year, no Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee was female, no So You Think You’re Funny finalist and only one Laughing Horse finalist. Not a good score.

One thing the 12 finalists in Funny Women did demonstrate in their respective five-minute sets is that there is a pool of talented new female acts around; though it was easier to be struck by the confidence, attitude and technical expertise than it was by their originality. It might be a result of the increasing ‘corporatisation’ of the new act scene, with countless course turning out competent but safe acts, but contestants largely lived up to existing archetypes of stand-up rather than have having a fresh new voice.

There’s the funny foreigner, the end-of-the-pier entertainer, the actresses dabbling in sketch, the dryly quirk one, the gobby black one… at times, it felt like auditions for the Spice Girls of comedy, whatever the promise of individual acts.

Opener Katerina Vrana fizzled with verve and confident likeability, even if remarks about being a cross between two celebrities and moaning about British drizzle didn’t really engage. The bulk of her set is a routine in which she imagines ruling the world, which becomes a Joyce Grenfellesque piece in which she tells of Israel and Palestine for bickering and banished Zimbabwe to the naughty step. There are some knowing lines that entertain, but it’s rather too formulaic an idea to sustain such a long item, and rather too smug in its execution.

Elizabeth Mee admits she’s a stereotype: middle-aged and upper-middle-class, she’s Radio 4 in human form, and makes predictable references to Agas and children named Hermione. She’s an elegant performer, with a warm RP accent that could guarantee her a career as a voiceover artiste, and a poised, controlled delivery. Stylish gags pepper the set, if not quite frequently enough, but the writing lacks depth, neither advance nor subvert her personality beyond the obvious caricature. But it’s a good starting point.

Italian Giada Garofalo promised some unique material about her country’s political class and Silvio Berlusconi’s antics. Unfortunately, like all politicians, she didn’t quite deliver on that promise. She couldn’t advance beyond the fact that her nation has a corrupt system, with the president making political appointments with penis, that makes British MPs’ expensive scandals look positively amateurish. Admittedly, she needs such an easy route in to the topic for UK audience who are unlikely to be up to speed with goings-on in Rome, but after setting the scene, she pretty much repeated every idea, just with a slightly different phrasing, with diminishing returns.

Eve Webster is an impressionist with a definite knack for voices, which is the least you can expect from the job description. As with most exponents of the genre, there’s a chuckle of recognition for each accurate impersonation that’s recognised – but equally no ambition in writing beyond ‘imagine if Ann Widdecombe were on the X-Factor’ or ‘Mrs Thatcher (topical!) on Loose Women. Her repertoire includes Joanna Lumley, Charlotte Church and Barbara Windsor, and she’s not going to let the fact she has no reason to launch into any of the voices stop her from doing so. Such old-fashioned shtick didn’t interest me in the least, but the volume of the ovation at the end of her routine was proof that she’s a clear audience favourite, and was given the silver on the night.

Though primarily an actor, the dry and quirky Charlie Covell shows considerable promise as a stand-up, despite some faltering first steps. Her opening remarks about feeling neither overwhelmed nor underwhelmed, but perfectly ‘whelmed’ had an air of familiarity, while her next topic – finding no lock on a public toilet door – must be one of the most common for new act to explore. But she took the material down an unexpected route, much to her credit. There is much to enjoy in her tales of teenage angst, too, not least the dreadful poetry she reads. Some of the gags need to be sharper, but while Covell was probably one of the least polished of the night’s acts, she is potentially one of the more interesting.

‘Single ladies MAKE SOME NOISE!’ As feisty as they come, high-impact Miss London – the alter-ego of 20-year-old Dionne Hughes – burst on to the stage with attitude so in-your-face you can’t ignore it. Her aggressive stance is such that she sneers at ugly boys who dare to talk to her on the dance floor and orders us to clap at routines she insists are worthy. Slipping in phrases from both African and Caribbean cultures, she demands that we enjoy her through sheer force of personality alone. Closer analysis might reveal a lack of substance beneath all this front, but for a short set she injects such energy into the room that it’s hard to resist. The judges certainly thought so, and awarded her the Funny Women crown.

One’s a Norwegian, the other is a British Muslim from Pakistani parents, but from the very first line, it’s impossible not to draw comparisons between Marie Vagen and Shazia Mirza. Their cadence is almost identical, the dry deadpan, phrased with mechanical deliberation and dripping with contempt. Vagen’s material, however, is left brutally exposed by this pattern – predictable shtick about inbreeding and drunkenness (and that was just the children!!) in her homeland. A line or two, even from such uninspired beginnings, hint at potential for more, but it’s thin pickings at the moment.

Sketch groups often struggle on stand-up bills, and Domestic Goddi proved no exception, not helped by their humdrum writing. First Helen O’Brien and Genevieve Swallo appear as two vacuous middle-class teenagers, their speech a meaningless mass of redundant adverbs, all basically literally, unbelievably… Oh My God, it’s, like, so obvious. This was followed by a Top Gear spoof, which adeptly captured the sarcastic laddish rhythms of Clarkson and Co, and applied them to the more female-friendly topic of shoes. A decent idea, well executed, but over-extended.

Tania Edwards has a beautifully natural style and poise on stage, with an unpretentious, chatty style you can’t help but to warm to. Unfortunately, she’s used that to take some liberties with her writing, which can be unfocussed, as she talks around the subject of making a few too many sexual mistakes. She hits her stride after a while, though, and nails a succinct, funny line about premature ejaculation before an engaging story about a pointless lie she told to a Waitrose checkout girl. There’s not quite enough meat to her material, but top marks for relaxed presentation.

Rhona McKenzie offers a far more earthy set, with cheap-laugh references to the likes of camel toes, overgrown bushes and big pants, which she’s not slow in showing us. It’s about as original as it is subtle, though McKenzie’s certainly got lots of personality in delivering it. But gags about lies on dating ads – ‘cuddly’ = ‘fat’ for example – are as old as the hills.

Well-spoken Catherine Semark has understated elegance and quiet confidence, that draws the audience in – even though her routine is based entirely on her response to the T-shirt boasting ‘Well, it won’t such itself’. Sarah Millican’s previously used the lewd slogan as a punchline, but Semark manages not only to find her own track, but also makes a silk purse out of this sow’s purse of an idea, cuttingly mocking the idiot she saw wearing it, and extending this simple observation into a surprisingly classy routine. Semark has yet to fully develop as a comedian, but she shows promisng signs of being able to do so.

Finally, Jo Selby, whose character of Russian comedian Tatiana Ostrakova, fresh from Jongleurs Minsk, was a highlight of the night. Her stern, clipped delivery and unsmiling demeanour make laughter seem forbidden, and so all the more likely as she unemotively recounts her lost-in-translation jokes. Her glove puppet Mr Twinkles tries to teach us some stark home truths, too, but we are deemed unworthy of his wisdom. This is a distinctive character, skillfully performed with a real sense of comic purpose. Judges placed her third, but I’d have seen her higher. More please.

Reviewed by: Steve Bennett

Published: 22 Sep 2009