After the interval the show continued with Leah Davis. When she started making jokes about the fact that her husband was older than her I thought I'd misheard her. But no, unless I did mishear, she said that there was a two year gap, hardly a May to December Grand Canyon of a chasm, so frankly I couldn't see where the age-difference comedy came from. But there were some nice observations here, along with some less minty-fresh pull back and reveal gags such as one about her other half's penchant for...well I won't spoil it even though you might see it coming...
While most acts fitted into a fairly familiar stand-up pigeonhole Lorna Rose Treen was something different. A character comedian playing a black-clad femme fatale straight out of a pulp novel or a film noir. It was an impressive thumbnail sketch which immediately won over both the audience and the judges and bagged first prize. I personally thought she slightly milked it – having crawled offstage to a resounding ovation she crawled back on and got a second round of applause. But then again she was more than funny enough to deserve that mini-encore.
Tartan-clad Marjolein Robertson had a full length show at the Edinburgh Fringe a month ago so perhaps it was no surprise that she seemed confident with her material. Robertson had a pretty unique selling point too, talking about how she had moved from an isolated farming community in the Shetlands to Edinburgh when she went to university. The culture clash comedy here may have written itself to an extent but Robertson built on basic foundations to create a compellingly funny series of connected anecdotes. The judges gave her second place and it was hard to argue with that.
Sharlin Jahan was another international act. And like Robertson she had a true – we presume – story to tell. It was about how her parents put an ad in a Bangladeshi paper in the hope of finding her a husband. It didn't work out quite as planned, one respondent was hoping for a job with her dad, not a wife. Jahan had a strong presence onstage. She was unplaced but clearly knows how to tell a story.
Final act Tatty Macleod had a distinctive tale to tell too, about how she had grown up in France and now she was living back in the UK. Well, maybe it wasn't that distinctive as it mostly consisted of that tried and tested trope, Engliah v French comparisons. Needless to say the English did not come out of it too well, though the French hardly came out of it garlanded in glory either.
Macleod was unplaced but I liked her. In fact I liked most of the acts, making this year's Funny Women finals one of the most impressive yet. In the past I've seen Sarah Millican, Sara Pascoe and Katherine Ryan vying for the Funny Women crown. It would not suprise me if at least a couple of the acts in this year's final were as popular as that trio in a few years.
