The fifth and final act of the first half, Ireland’s Aidan Strangeman (pictured) walked on with a guitar which could have meant one of two things. Either “Oh no, it’s musical comedy” or “Oh great, something different”. Fortunately it was the latter. Strangeman’s short quirky songs had more than a whiff of Tom Basden about them at first, but then he went into his main number, about his strange phobia, and he stormed it. All the acts have been comics for less than 18 months but one couldn’t help feeling that maybe Strangeman had been writing ditties like this for longer. Which is not to be dismissive of him or to suggest any infringement of the rules, it is to underline how good his wordplay and comic ideas were. He was the clear winner and is surely destined for bigger things.

The second half started with Chris MacArthur-Boyd, who succumbed to the trope of starting by explaining who he looked like – in his case a hybrid of Gok Wan and Ronnie Corbett. The young Scottish stand-up clearly had something but he seemed to have difficulty hitting his stride in this short set, getting a few laughs out of being a geeky wimp, but running out of steam. If the prize was for potential he might have been placed, but in terms of performance he was disappointing.

Eshaan Akbar didn’t seem to lack anything in the confidence department. Strolling on in salmon pink trousers and with a resonant, booming voice, he resembled an Asian Dom Joly. He had another USP too – he turned out to be deaf and got some good giggles out of getting preferential treatment from the PC brigade in job interviews because he ticked two boxes. No need for preferential treatment here, he could have easily been placed, but the competition at the top was very tight.

In fact the next act was my winner, but I was outvoted. Joe Hart’s first gag was another “who do I lookalike?” opener and it didn’t really work. But then suddenly he rallied with a very well-written, quirky science-based routine about space and time meeting up. It had a big echo of classic Eddie Izzard about it – some might have thought it was derivative but to me it showed a talent for using language and ideas. It was also very funny. The other judges could see Hart certainly had something though, and he was awarded third place.

And so finally to Scotland’s Gary Meikle. No quite a dud, but after such a high standard a bit of a flat act to finish on. Plenty of energy, but nothing special about the material, which took in online dating, how men hate shopping and the awkwardness of chatting to your neighbour. Once again though his confidence and stagecraft was impressive and it wouldn’t shock me if he makes a decent living out of stand-up. He was unplaced but then as fellow judge Jason Manford pointed out when he handed over the prizes, he was unplaced as well when he was a SYTYF finalist. And Jason Manford hasn’t done too badly…