Komedia New Comedy Award Final 2023

Review of the Brighton venue's talent hunt

There are so many new comedy competitions now that it can be easy to take them for granted. But the genuine delight on Sam Williams’s face after being crowned the Komedia’s New Act Of The Year in Brighton last night shows how much some of the more prestigious titles can mean.

‘I graduated from uni in Bristol this morning so this is the most "main character" day of my life,’ he gushed, before praising the ‘amazing’ line-up he shared the stage with. ‘I have no words, I am so happy,’ he said as he received his accolade.

But even before he was named as the winner, Williams exuded a giddy positivity in his set. This Ariane Grande superfan was palpably happy to be in a queer city like Brighton, accepting his/their gender ambiguity in a way his native, uber-conservative Maidenhead would never do. His set snipes at more conventional folks, but in a gentle, teasing, way fully in keeping with his optimistic nature. And he backs the winning personality up with some decent jokes.

Earlier, Italian Romana Puma got the gig off to a lively start, with a bouncy, quirky delivery and winningly bonkers personality, down to ‘grrrring’ or meowing when sharing her bedroom desires. And it’s a set that draws heavily on the sexual, made fresh by her vivacity and candour - with witty descriptions of her ageing vagina and enthusiastic embrace of the term ‘fou fou’ that bubbles with joy. She has a disability - muscular dystrophy - which informs anecdotes of online dating and beyond – but it’s secondary to a sprightly celebration of sexuality, and cheery acceptance of the failings of a middle-aged body.

In what we can only hope is a character act, Sarah Roberts nails the worst of privileged millennials, dripping with disgust at the thought of having to work for a living and affecting a weary, ironic detachment that prohibits any real emotion. A ‘tragedy pervert’ whose psyche was irreparably damaged by bad early 2000s TV, she imagines herself surviving an apocalypse ‘you know, for a laugh’ only to find an unlikely new band of leaders. You wonder where she might go with this persona over a longer set, but she’s got good jokes and a quirky outlook – and absolutely inhabits this grotesque character.

In a perfect contrast, Roberts was followed by working-class comic Jack Skipper, who cheerily describes himself as ‘white trash’ and positively revels in his lack of education. He’s got an alpha-male delivery that commands the room and a no-nonsense outlook that gels into strong punchlines – such as his perfect description of a fellow dad who - unlike him - has got his life together. He’s almost certain to invite comparisons with Micky Flanagan, even before his description of the mate everyone calls ‘Mark Mark’ evokes the classic ‘out out’ routine – but he shows plenty of signs of being worthy of being grouped in the same company. A worthy winner of one of the three, equal runner-up places.

Kate Barella sets herself up as a well-spoken ‘G&T girl’ whose convent education instilled a lot of hang-ups. Thus her set revolves around sexual urges and failings – plus her failed attempts to remain relevant - into middle-age. She’s mannered in her delivery, carefully packaging a series of shortish jokes a little mechanically. A few of them are strong, but many are just average and she doesn’t build enough momentum for that not to matter.

Daman Bamran opens with a magnificent rug-pull of a joke – the kind that’s been done before, but rarely so effectively. That over, the Punjabi comic reveals himself to be a innately engaging presence, cheerfully sarcastic against both the casually racist and the vacuously virtue-signalling… though his routine on the vintage ‘love music, hate racism’ T-shirts could be tighter, he’s got plenty of stronger lines, an engaging personality and a world view that’s off-kilter enough to be interesting while appealing to a more mainstream audience. He also rightly scooped one of the runner-up places.

Shalaka Kurup scored the last of those slots, but in a different way – as a much dryer, more detached comic, with an impressive arsenal of cool, sardonic stand-up. A good chunk is based on coming out as bisexual to her conservative Indian parents, but her sarcasm is just as effectively deployed against more universal topics, such as the folly of camping. Her aloof, well-spoken delivery adds a false veneer of respectability to some of the more below-the-belt content, such as going for a smear test, while she has an ear for a good punchline and can subvert racial stereotypes with the best of them. Although she IS a doctor as her day job, so some are harder to defy…

Osman Shibli has a laid-back ease on stage, which is partly admirable, but also gives latitude to indulge in stories that could be much tighter. An anecdote about bringing his pet cats through Heathrow almost certainly wasn’t worth the amount of time he dedicated to it. While he has some decent punchlines, the set’s also disjointed, but not quite in a way that’s appealingly offbeat. For example, he set it up by saying we’re going to hear much about his mental health and bleak worldview, but never returned to it.

Elaine Fellows defies expectations in as much as she isn’t the older, middle-class woman you might expect an ‘Elaine’ to be like, as she amusingly confesses. She is, instead, a blunt-speaking Northern lass, aware of her own shortcomings and relatable insecurities as anyone, but bluntly calling out bullshit when she sees it too. What was her mum’s lie about the tooth-fairy all about. It’s robust set, perhaps without the flairs of distinction some of tonight’s tough competition possess, but club-ready.

Wrap this up with charismatic headliner Michael Akadiri - the last winner of this competition, pre-pandemic and fresh from his Live At The Apollo debut - with hugely entertaining stories from his job as a doctor and his life beyond that, plus some makes-it-look-effortless compering from Barry Ferns and you have one very strong night of comedy.

Komedia winners