Review by Steve Bennett

The numbers involved in the Laughing Horse new act contest are always staggering; this year more than 1,000 would-be comedians took parts in heats across its network of small clubs, so competition is fierce. You might, then, expect the top one or two per cent of acts who make it to the final to have something to stand out from the crowd. That’s not always the case, but 2010 certainly looks like being a good vintage.

Richard Rycroft’s point of difference is that he’s 50. Not all that old by circuit standards, but positively antiquated compared to most the eager young bucks making their start in stand-up. His age, therefore, makes up a decent chunk of his short routine as he sets out to prove how familiar he is with youth culture... only to get everything slightly wrong. Clever wordplay and knowing malapropisms get the laughs, even if the gags are sometimes smarter than he gets credit for, while snatches of pop lyrics maintain the image of a Dad trying too hard to show he’s still ‘with it’. The Mr Nice Guy persona makes this all rather endearing, helping him earn a ‘special commendation’ on the night, and it will be interesting to see how he expands his act beyond the horizons of being middle-aged.

Deadpan Pete Beckley had a nice poise, although a lot of his by-the-book writing made for very familiar territory: starting by referencing a famous person he looks like and encompassing internet dating, Facebook (with the obligatory ‘poke’ reference) and how predictive text can hilariously garble messages - even though most modern phones are more advanced than that. Even the old ‘get off, you’re rubbish’ heckle putdown gets worked into the set as if it were material. As a novice he makes a few easy-to-rectify mistakes - his payoff about a lap-top dancing club is telegraphed since it immediately follows material about computers, and a callback about ‘a friend of mine’ is redundantly explained even after it gets the laugh – but getting more adventurous in his inspiration will be a more difficult hurdle than technical tweaks. A few enjoyably offbeat lines make their way into his set – but there’s not quite enough of them.

Dan Wright comes across as Mr Confident – and no surprise since he’s been part of the Electric Forecast double act for about a decade, and has cult fame as the diminutive half of Big Cook Little Cook on children’s TV. Perhaps in rebellion to that, he did seem to use the word ‘fuck’ with unnecessary frequency – or perhaps it just stood out more because of his background. Eligible for the new act competition on the basis of recently going solo, Wright’s delivery is hugely animated, with big physical gestures that pretty much make the act, given that some of the material, about being ginger or affecting the accents of urban youth (however accurately) is rather safe. In contrast, the section about the bizarre Post-It notes his Dad leaves around the house is inherently stronger and more distinctive, so more soberly delivered.

Mark Restuccia had an assured delivery, too, if a much less ebullient one, and some decent jokes to boot. But his sense of humour was inconsistent – at one moment he’d be indulging in some ironic misogyny or hard-edged nastiness, the next it would be all amiable whimsy about talking to a cat. It made for a mixed bag of a set, but with enough corking lines to satisfy, more often than not when he kept off the harsher material, all delivered with unwavering faith.

Mark Cornell didn’t seem to have such certainty in his routine, largely concerning everyday turns of phrase. Often this seemed like inordinate pickiness, while the gag about small changes to sentences making a big difference is a much weaker version of a Demetri Martin take on the same idea. Yet the section about the throwaway phrase ‘oh yeah’ had a fine payoff, and the flourishes that adorned the core material showed a keen, eccentric wit. It’s that he needs to harness without getting too obtuse, as some of his lines unquestionably did.

A vision in beige, Dave Gibson has the dress sense of Flight Of The Conchords’s fictional manager Murray – but his routine is a lot more flamboyant. How you take it will depend entirely on your appetite for cheese, as his silly, punny material is sold with an unremittingly upbeat, slightly false, good humour and plenty of sparky banter. The audience lapped up his entertaining, high-energy shtick, with his pacy, funny routines about being a TV audience warm-up man, his encounter with a delightfully dim heckler, and Greg’s the bakers. He was unlucky not to earn a place, as his broad, relentlessly jokey approach does divide opinion; but fans of the foolish are likely to love it.

Daniel Smith was the first to acknowledge the ‘slight tempo difference’ between his aridly dry style. He is one of the new breed of anti-comedians, deconstructing everything while being in no rush to get to punchlines, nor putting much emotion into his set. These things prove irritating, but when he deigned to move on to more substantial material, he demonstrated a decidedly original approach, not only to his chosen subjects – 14th century philosophers, anyone? – but also in the construction of gags and the elegant language he uses. While his set is still unnecessarily awkward, there are germs of brilliance here, and the third place he attained seems a good reflection of his potential.

Inel Tomlinson seems to have ODed on Def Comedy Jam... but a few bad habits aside (‘all the guys make some noise!’) the delivery techniques he’s picked up stand him in very good stead: exuberant, playfully confident and full of oomph, he engaged with the audience and breathed life into his observational material. His signature routine revolves around the poor-quality trainers he had as a kid – a combination of nostalgia, celebration of rubbish things, and strong delivery that could make him the black Peter Kay, for better or for worse. He even makes the hack topic of Ryanair work, thanks to an inspired comparison, though he doesn’t have the same luck in making the routine about Super Mario Brothers shine, marking a rare misstep.

Forget the misguided old cliche about female comics always talking about periods; one of the more common lines of attack is for women stand-ups to paint themselves as a desperate, borderline-psychotic stalkers. Kiwi Anna Freyberg adds to the tally, though she does so with some style, even though her status as one of the least experienced finalists on the bill showed in her performance. She comes across as delivering a monologue that’s carefully written and rehearsed, rather than the looser, more conversational approach most comics have at least learned to fake. But her extended metaphor comparing her non-existent love life to a cafe’s bakery products was wittily whimsical, with plenty of warmth to her presence and admirable lines in the writing.

Bedraggled Alan Sharp served up a mixed bag in his endearing West Country accent. Obligatory jokes about inbreeding or about him looking like a washed-up Jesus do him no favours, yet on the other hand he shows a mastery of the pun with just one brilliantly funny band name. Tales of a poverty-induced existence on supermarkets’ unappealing Value ranges are witty and evocative, too. It averages out to a solid, dependable routine, if not quite enough to stand out.

Stand out is something Andrea Hubert does, as a tall girl with a very distinctive look. She’s a thoroughly engaging presence, too, with a quirkily descriptive approach to her observations. In truth, she is probably better than her material, which can be slow to build – but she can get laughs from comments that aren’t all that funny, which is definitely a gift. Key to it all is the tableau she so convincingly paints of her life as 30-year-old, single, often-unemployed cat-loving Jewish girl. She establishes this persona quickly, and all material hangs off it so naturally that you are drawn instinctively into her world. This is what earned her second place on night.

She was only outranked by Julian Deane, who had an obvious self-assurance and ruthlessly efficient delivery of well-polished punchlines. He may not fit the financial definition yet, but the man’s definitely a pro, with plenty of lines that our top stand-ups would be proud of. He reveals something of his life as a father to two sets of children, but only in as much as it serves as the feedline for the next gag. It’s a very American approach, but what it lacks in depth, it makes up for in pace. The only criticism is there are a couple too many jokes that rely on the proven technique of ‘pull back to reveal’ – but the man clearly has a career in comedy cut out for him.

A hard act to follow, as American emigree Robert Commiskey found. He ratcheted up his geekiness and social awkwardness for his disjointed, sometimes confused set, but failed to make any real impact. He started with some straightforward but effective material about British habits he’s learned of since living here - not least our love of the double entendre. His observation about our phone sign-offs was especially incisive, but he couldn’t sustain the quality, and other sections of his set held together less well, with the lines between idea and punchline frequently getting tangled. He’s not bereft of ideas, but expressing them properly can elude him.

Still, this was a rare hiccough in an evening which, for the most part, proved a fine demonstration of the breadth of talent emerging from the top end of Britain’s burgeoning – or possibly bloated –  open-mic scene.

Published: 31 May 2010