Chortle's national student comedy awards

‘Student’ and ‘comedy’. What other two words carry the same feeling as impending dread?  ‘Invasive’ and ‘surgery’, perhaps.

It’s a genre cruelly defined on one hand by so many painfully zany and cringingly amateurish medical student revues, and on the other by smugly theatrical middle-class sketch teams.

Thank heavens, then, for those students determined to make a decent go of it, to work at the ideas and their performance and entertain others, not just themselves, despite the constant presence of that mammoth debt telling them they really ought to be working on their degree. It’s these acts who the Chortle Student Comedy Award seeks to encourage – real up-and-coming comics who just happen to be at college, and the best of whom gathered for the London final this week.

We lost one finalist to his studies, after Midlands heat winner Dominic Elliot Spencer decided the pressure of work was just too much. But the other five regional winners, and two wildcard finalists, were all present and correct for the sold-out audience.

First up, Paul Hayfield, came on as a supercilious, sharp-suited, racist Little Englander, though any irony sailed over the heads of the audience who noticeably bristled at his mean-spirited gypsy-bashing and lines like ‘Jordan’s kid was born blind. That made me happy’. It was an unremitting tide of nastiness that, even filtered through a character, proved too much for the audience to stomach.

Five or so minutes into the set, and painfully aware of how badly the material was going, Hayfield broke out of his persona to bemoan his predicament. It was here things became funny, though possibly inadvertently so, as his genuine frustration at the gig came through. In this, Hayfield proved he had got funny bones – even thought the unremittingly evil character isn’t currently the right outlet for him.

Darren Richman also performed in character, though Mr Headmaster was more obviously a parody than Hayfield’s attempt. His set came in the form of a ‘death assembly’, mourning the very recent passing of William Morris Gubb. It was a routine that started very slowly, though the audience were suitably forgiving, before building up its comic momentum.

The parallels with this pompous authority figure and Rowan Atkinson’s old live work are obvious, although Richman does manage to make the routine his own, thanks to careful writing and lovely moments of stupidity, as he lapses into street slang or comes up with increasingly implausible nicknames for the dear departed Gubbster. Nice work.

Tony Richardson is a more straightforward comedian, and one with a very relaxed, conversational style. A bit too relaxed, really, as his anecdotes came across as too long-winded and pointless. While charm goes a long way, it’s punchlines we need. He was  forced to confront the fact his slightly whimsical material, which ranged from urban violence to fantasy rugby teams involving cartoon characters, wasn’t really working, which he did like a seasoned pro, but didn’t alter the fact he wasn’t connecting.

Soon after Chris Martin started his set came a cry of relief from the audience: ‘A joke! Horrah!’ After two characters and a rambling storyteller, Martin’s solid stand-up set, with its attention to gags, was obviously well overdue.

First on his agenda is obviously the matter of his name, wearily dismissing the coincidence that he shares it with the Coldplay frontman. That leads smoothly onto more name-based material, some of which seems unpromising but most of which yields a few efficient lines.

It’s a well-constructed set, and even if some material threatens to verges on the bland, the fact he sounds and acts like a comic, possibly because he is the finalist with the most gig experience, gives an audience confidence in him. A deserved second place on the night.

Watching Cambridge Footlighter Simon Bird is fascinating, not just for what he does, but for the reaction of the audience. Coming on with his jacket sleeves unfashionably rolled up to the elbow, he confesses this is his first stand-up gig since 1986 and then embarks on the most dated of routines. The joy is watching the penny drop in one punter at a time, as it becomes increasingly clear this is a Ben Elton parody until he’s finally left ranting childishly at Margaret Thatcher and revelling in his own petty anarchy.

Once the whole room is in on the joke, it’s over, and he switches to more straightforward stand-up. It’s analytical, intelligent stuff – from the head, rather than the heart – and as such doesn’t quite have the impact it might deserve; although more experience might soften that edge. But Bird’s certainly an intriguing comic, happy to play with the conventions of the artform. He’s most likely to have a career on the interesting fringes of comedy, like Simon Munnery perhaps.

Softly spoken Irishman Donnchadh O’Connail, pictured, has an impressive innate ability to hold the audience transfixed, despite a wilfully low-key approach. And even though material, too, is delicate, his sharp one-liners reward the attention.

There’s a distinctively bleak feel to the set, too, which only adds to its appeal. O’Connail’s pessimism finds its outlet in world-weary jokes about suicide, the pain of love and the loneliness of existence. It sounds depressing, but the fine jokes that emerge from this stance are anything but, and easily earned him the student comedian of the year title.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Andy Vaughan is an upbeat, energetic Glaswegian with an appealing, confident delivery who’s not afraid of a little sponteneity. But he’s badly let down by some bland material – with dated jokes about Michael Barrymore, dyslexics and how rough his home town is.

The way he tells ’em is so good that you are always on his side, willing him to be funny. Which is why it comes as a real disappointment that the content isn’t better. But the maturity of his performance hides the fact he’s barely 20, which gives him plenty of time to learn how to write.

Steve Bennett
May 17, 2006