Student comedy awards 2005

King's College London heat

Paul Byrne has won the first heat in the Chortle Student Comedy Awards.

The Essex University undergraduate impressed judges with the act he describes as “surreal… with a dark undertone.”

The third year history and literature now goes through to the final at the Tattershall Castle in Central London in April.

Further finalists will be selected in Manchester Unviersity’s Cellar venue tonight (Monday) and Coventry’s Warwick University on Tuesday.

The full-line up the London heat, with potted reviews from the night, was:

Owen Read-Beadle (Southampton Uni): An unabashed ‘posh bloke’ performer with an impressively relaxed stage presence and a nice line in observational banter, in keeping with, but entertainingly mocking, his persona.

Paul Byrne (Essex): A distinctively odd misfit of a character, with a nervous, rough-around-the-edges that only added to his charm.  Even if he lacked a bit of finesse in delivery, he more than made up for it with a wealth of distinctively surreal material as funny as it was inventive.

Hazel Humphries (Essex): A fairly routine routine, gently observational in nature but plunging relentlessly below the waist for its distasteful laughs. It’s competently delivered, and a few enjoyed her greatly, even though she often seemed to be simply ikky for its own sake.

Jonathan Beckman (Cambridge):T he overlong routine imagining the Bible as written by SAS author Andy McNabb dominated his set – the premise is nice, but once past the first couple of gags it starts to wane. The same problem dogged his set: good ideas, all lost in verbiose routines.

Dave Sayer and Jack Sommers (Cambridge): A laugh-free revue-style sketch about commercialisation of the NHS.

Neil Mooney (Open University):  Probably the night’s performer who most looked like a natural comic, he’s got the presence and delivery style to convince audiences he deserves to be on stage. The material’s OK, no better, no worse, though it needs to venture further than the well-documented differences between men and women.

Darren Richman as Mr Camber-Hesketh (Southampton): A monologue of a headmaster addressing assembly at his all-boys’ school reminiscent in style of Rowan Atkinson’s revue work. Although it could have done with a few more gags, it engaged  and quietly entertained the audience, and wouldn’t look out of place on a safe-ish Radio 4 sketch show.

Gary Thompson (Kent): A confident stage performer, and another who’s picked up the rhythms of a good stand-up delivery. He’s a nice turn of phrase, too, even if the material not yet distinctive enough to make a lasting impression.

Steve Bennett
February 7, 2005