Review of the final as aired on BBC One

Given all the opportunities the BBC can afford, it’s no surprise that their New Comedy Award attracts the cream of emerging comedians – and the final of this year’s contest, hosted in Birmingham by Lucy Beaumont and aired on BBC One last night, was no exception.

First out the gate came the oddest of the oddballs, with Jonathan Oldfield tripping onto the stage as he crooned about the clouds.  

A twisted version of the Rat Pack-style, all-round, all-American entertainer, he speaks with a bizarrely insincere cadence, strangulated vocal tics and a barrage of non-sequiturs, occasionally breaking into bizarre song snippets.

The weirdness is somewhat in the vein of last year’s winner, Joe Kent-Walters - which comes as little surprise given that Oldfield directed his fellow eccentric’s award-winning Edinburgh debut. However, Oldfield feels slightly forced in a way that Kent-Walters doesn’t, even though the latter’s Frankie Monroe alter-ego is an even more extremely absurd act. 

Nonetheless, the fragmented unpredictability keeps things interesting for Oldfield – while mixing weird, offbeat obsessions about the likes of Michael Bublé with daft puns should mean there’s something for anyone with a taste for the silly. 

Maia Tassalini is only marginally more conventional, introducing herself as ‘certifiably cuckoo… about avenging Monica Lewinsky’.  She affects a skittish, doltish personality, explaining the background to the former White House intern’s affair with Bill Clinton with little regard to the real facts and with the energy of a gossip sharing the latest Towie news.

But the flighty demeanour provides an approachable way of being political, highlighting the slut- and body-shaming Lewinsky was subjected to – and suggesting, or at least hoping, she would be more than the butt of cheap jokes today.  With an emphasis on being ditzy and fun, Tassalini lands her points much better than had she been preachy – and with a lot more laughs. 

Dane Buckley was the first outright accessible act, bringing a ton of camp charm to his vivacious act, in which he speaks entertainingly about being half-Irish and half-Indian, as well as his sexuality.

A couple of the jokes – or ones like them –  you might have heard before, and he’s certainly not above a cheap pun or knob gag… in fact, he loves them, and his bubbly personality sells them well. 

Meanwhile, his Kolkatan gran is an appealing character and a useful vessel to set up breezy passive-aggressive asides about his lifestyle. His Irish mammie is also queen of the annihilating putdown, at least in his telling of an encounter with a dick-swinging sex pest. 

A big change in energy came with the arrival low-key Welshman Paul Hilleard, exuding the dour vibes of a downcast loser as he shared his offbeat observations.

He paints a vivid picture of life in his native Pontypridd, where people don’t have ‘mental illness’ but are ‘characters’. The fully-formed persona, playing up on not being a success, nor particularly bright, stuck a cord with the audience – as well as the judges, who ultimately awarded him the title. 

By his account the Valleys are a quirky place, deprived financially, but not of personality.  So if he’s looking for a world in which to set a sitcom with the BBC audio commission that comes as part of his prize, he won’t have to look far.

Jake Donaldson is a more conventional comic, with quips about living in Newcastle and self-deprecating comments about his appearance making use of his talent for wordplay and misdirection.

Being partially blind gives him licence to mock amateur blind sports that a sighted comic would never get away with. While more personal material, assuredly told, reveals how his career law came crashing down. So welcome to comedy, the refuge of the unemployable…

Irish comic Marty Gleeson exudes an uneasy, unpredictable vibe, which she took right into the audience – and indeed right through the screen – as she engineered a super-awkward interaction with an audience member in the front row to kickstart her set.

Of course, this space cadet has travelled to the future, and she’s come back to report on how things turned out – delivering her short, quirky lines to the beat of a drum, which certainly makes her stand out, even before it turned into a fully-fledged absurd song about David Attenborough.

She certainly has a different way of thinking, which has made her a regular in finals such as this.  And, like all those on the bill tonight, the high-profile showcase of her quirky talents will have done her career a great deal of good.

• The BBC New Comedy Award final and all the heats are available on iPlayer.

Review date: 14 Nov 2024
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett