Review of the showcase, with Tom Towelling named winner

It’s described as the West Midlands biggest comedy award… so what is that treasured prize? A branded mug.

Nevertheless, the kudos of joining the ranks of Celya AB and Josh Pugh in being a winner of the Birmingham Comedy Festival Breaking Talent award is certainly worth having, with five hopefuls competing for the title at the Glee club last night

Opening the bill was Rich Spalding, the most experienced of the bunch, having already debuted an hour-long Edinburgh Fringe show at the Pleasance this August.

He is an original and offbeat commentator on everything from his own appearance – a generic bearded youngish man who has, unflatteringly, been likened to Harold Shipman – to the entire capitalist system, distilled into an astute routine about how ordinary folk are the conduit for billionaires and millionaires to shuffle their money around.

A cautious beta-male who’d choose a hen do over a stag do any day, Spalding’s delivery is rather subdued and doesn’t do full justice to his distinctive writing. More charismatic comics have got a lot more out of a lot less –so if he can bring his stage presence up to the levels of his creativity at the keyboard, he’ll really be on to something.

Resembling Adrian Chiles but with even less joie de vivre, Dom Bant is as deadpan as a thousand unconfident new acts before him. But at 38 going on 60, this relatively inexperienced act makes the understated, distant delivery work for him,

His material - whether it be about living in a suburb among old racists or vasectomies – is on-point and reinforces a persona of being browbeaten by life, struggling as a father and with positive affirmations lost on him.

 Again, the writing is more impactful than the performance, but there’s barely a misplaced word in the material, which earned him a commendation from the judges, myself included, which is only rarely given in this competition.

Gareth Williams is a gregarious ball of camp energy… though it it soon becomes evident that’s almost all he is, as in contrast to the opening two acts, there’s little distinctive material behind the appealing persona. 

There are a few gags about his weight and turning 30 – ‘I’ve got to start thinking about children…. not like that!’ – which tend to hit the obvious. And hit outright nicks an old John Mulaney line about his childhood leading him to think quicksand was going to be a much bigger problem in adulthood

He has a more distinctive routine about a pet guinea pig, but too often he goes down route one, selling the gags hard, but vacuous at its core.

Lin Smith also includes some unoriginal jokes in their set, and comes a cropper because of it, when a punter shouts out the punchline to the closing gag, a well-worn pub gag, before they can get to it.

Smith, too, is a force of nature personality, but intriguingly hard to pin down, mixing lines about being a terrible lesbian and corporate nonsense with corny nonsense based on celebrity names - Taylor Swift isn’t a fast seamstress – while acknowledging such groaners are testing the audience’s patience.

Yet Smith seems winningly unaffected on stage, a naturalness that makes the flighty, erratic nature of the set appealing. They will probably have to form this into something more solid to be marketable, but their inconsistency tantalises more than it frustrates.

Stand-out star of the night, and well deserved winner of the title, was Tom Towelling, formerly half of the double-act Good Kids, and solo winner of this year’s Musical Comedy Award. 

However, it would be simplistic to describe him simply as a musical act, even if he does wield an melodica and start his set with a bonkers rendition of the National Anthem, twisted as much by his imagination as the pitch-shifting effects pedal he employs. 

With props, false starts and much silliness, as well as a willingness to take his oddball comedy right into the audience, he’s reminiscent of out-there acts such as Sam Campbell, offering a break from the norm that went down well with this Thursday night crowd. Snippets of off-the-wall surrealism range from boasting about his ‘big toe energy’ to smart-dumb gags about what it takes to be a police officer.

It’s a fast-paced smorgasbord, but with far more hits than misses, and with the sheer unpredictability of what he’ll do next bringing a real verve to the performance. He’s a welcome addition to the circuit’s collection of weirdos.

Review date: 11 Oct 2024
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Birmingham Glee Club