Scottish comedian Liam Farrelly has won this year's Frog and Bucket’s World Series Comedy Competition in Manchester.
The assured Glaswegian won the 18th competition with Jenny Hart as runner up and a special panel prize going to the pin sharp Indian comic Ashish Suri.
The other finalists were –
David Arnold – a Welshman from the comedy scene of the south west of England.
Aaron Atkins – formerly from San Francisco, now works in a chippy.
Martina Cotichella – from Rome and founder of the A-Women Network.
Sam Serrano – a 21 year old student from Liverpool who started comedy young.
Lovell Smith – an accountant from Birmingham.
Rob Thomas – Park Run winning dad of three from Wales.
Stuart Thomas – who was brought up on a Welsh sheep farm.
The gong style new act night Beat the Frog grew out of The Frog’s Raw Night where wannabe comedians would get up on stage and give it a go. Now at Beat the Frog every Monday the competitors are fighting to stay on stage for the full five minutes but at the top of the show three audience members are supplied with red cards to hold up if they don’t like the act and when all three are up you’re croaked clean off the stage. At the end a winner is selected from all those who ‘beat the frog’. The World Series pits all those who have won throughout the year against each other to find the victor of victors!
The Frog is well known for nurturing new talent having helped launch many a famous name. Peter Kay and Johnny Vegas were regulars at the club as they were honing their material. John Bishop’s first ever gig was famously at the Raw Night. Jack Whitehall used to pop in when he was a student and a burgeoning comic still at Manchester Uni. The likes of Sarah Millican, Lee Mack, Jason Manford, Dave Gorman and Lucy Porter regularly graced the stage too.
Caroline Aherne was a keen attender of the Raw Night back in the early days coming in with her then husband New Order’s Peter Hook.
The winners of the World Series over the years have included the writer of the popular I See You column Sam Gore, the critically acclaimed and on the telly Brennan Reece, the award winning Mock the Week writer Rob Mulholland, comedy scene favourite Carl Hutchinson, the deadpan acidity of Penella Mellor (these days performing as Emma Kearney) and the incomparable spikey Aussie Anna Spark.
Last year's winner was Dan Tiernan, the runner up was one-liner merchant Charlie Lewis and a special panel prize went to the observational comedian from Stoke - Adam Flood.
Also in Manchester ths weekend Dan Tiernan won the West Didsbury Comedy Festival New Comedian of the Year 2021. Kate Martin was second and Ryan Kenny was third.
