Comedy festival finalists announced

The line-up has been announced for this year’s Birmingham Comedy Festival Breaking Talent Award.

Competing for the title at The Glee comedy club on Thursday 10 October 10 are: :.

Dom Bant: Hailing from Chelmsley Wood, Birmingham, and now living in Coleshill, Warwickshire, Bant made his stage debut in 2019 after completing a stand-up comedy course. With a style that has been called ‘deadpan and self deprecating,’ he says: ‘I mainly talk about what annoys me and my experience of relationships, parenthood [and] being a beta man in a world of Trump and Farage apologists.’

Caleb James: The freelance video editor  calls Cannock, in Staffordshire, home. He popped his stand-up cherry at Comedy Virgins in London, in 2021. ‘I started out gigging in London because post-pandemic gigs in and around Birmingham were hard to find,’ says the comic who peddles "dark, dirty, observational/ storytelling".

Lin Smith: Smith made her stand-up debut five years ago, at The Firefly’s ComedyJam night, in her home town of Worcester – a night she graduated to overseeing in 2021. Describing herself as a ‘recovering musical comic’ she says her comedy aims to be ‘offensively fast, lightly fruity, powerfully erratic,’ and takes inspiration from such distinctive figures as Julia Davis, Emo Philips, Diane Morgan and Reeves and Mortimer.

Rich Spalding: Born in Kidderminster, Worcestershire, Spalding studied at the University of Birmingham, and now lives in Hackney, East London. A copywriter by day, he co-hosts the Our Dads Died podcast (with Tom Gerken). Spalding describes his career highlights as ‘winning the Panel Prize at the Beat the Frog World Series Final 2022 [in Manchester] and making my Edinburgh Fringe debut at the Pleasance Courtyard this year.’

 Tom Towelling: Having initially made a name for himself as one half of Birmingham Comedy Festival Breaking Talent Award 2018 nominated double-act Good Kids, Towelling won this year’s  Musical Comedy Award as a solo act. A resident of Hall Green, Birmingham, Tom is a regular at Moseley’s Deep Friend Comedy Club. Citing John Kearns and Mr Bean as key inspirations, he describes his comedy style as ‘deliciously rich and creamy’.

Gareth Williams: Raised in Shropshire, Williams first got a taste for comedy as a member of Bath Spa University’s Comedy Society, The Idle Playthings. Later moving to Brum, he launched LGBTQ+ comedy night, Queer As Joke, in 2021. ‘I just tell stories from the perspective of an overweight, underprepared millennial, with a bit of a saucy flare,’ he says.

Previous winners of the Breaking Talent Award, which was set up in 2014, include Josh Pugh, Celya AB and Eric Rushton.

A spokesperson for Birmingham Comedy Festival said: ‘When we first discussed starting this award, we did fleetingly wonder if we might run out of acts. But ten years later, and such a thought seems utterly ridiculous, as the region continues to be a home to so many talented comedians, whose inventiveness, charisma and originality continues to inspire newcomers.’

Compared by James Cook, the Birmingham Comedy Festival Breaking Talent Award will also be streamed on NextUp Comedy, and features a  closing set from  Sarah Callaghan.

Birmingham Comedy Festival runs from Friday October 4 to Sunday October 13. Website.

Published: 4 Sep 2024