The Beat The Frog World Series 2022 comedy competition grand final has taken place at the Frog & Bucket in Manchester.
A fine line up emerged from the five heats across the last month. And the results are as follows:
Dane Buckley was the winner, Amy Webber was runner up. The panel prize went to Richard Spalding, who describes himself as "a polite man with glasses from the Midlands… unremarkable in just about every unconceivable way’ aside from being bloody funny that is."
Dane Buckley describes himself as "the world’s only left-handed, Irish, Indian, gay comedian who grew up on a council estate in Harrow". Amy Webber is a versatile musical comedian employing irony and sarcasm as well as her phenomenal singing voice.
The other finalists were:
James Ellis – a veteran of the comedy final all the way from Crawley who has worries about his weight.
Katie Gill-Williams – tales from her journey from her upbringing Widnes to living the dream on the north Wales coast.
Bennet Kavanagh – comedian, writer and musician with an impressive keyboard.
Molly McGuinness – Manchester’s own, sharply sardonic and a BBC New Comedy Award finalist.
Sergi Polo – all the way from Barcelona and as far away from his family as he can get.
Faizan Shah - also a Manchester local, his is a cerebral take on the world and of growing up in an immigrant household.
Viggo Venn – Norwegian clown with an impressive line in party tricks and silly noises.
At Beat the Frog every Monday night the audience are given the choice whether the acts stay on stage to deliver their full five minutes of material or are ‘croaked’ off before their time. Three audience members are given cards and a line up of nervous, new acts take to the stage to try and impress. A winner is chosen via a clap off from all those that survive the full five minutes. The winners throughout the year make up the acts across the heats.
Last year’s competition saw skilled Glaswegian gagster Liam Farrelly win with the trans comedian with a wicked sense of humour Jenny Hart as runner up and a special panel prize going to Indian comic Ashish Suri with his sharp stylings.
The winners of the World Series over the years have included the writer of the popular I See You column Sam Gore and the critically acclaimed Brennan Reece who has also made numerous TV appearances. Award winning comedian and TV writer Rob Mulholland and Carl Hutchinson who is a perennial live favourite on the UK circuit and internationally. And more recently Dan Tiernan whose rise has been fast, his CV now includes tour support for Jamali Maddix.
The Frog and Bucket has always supported new talent with the previous incarnation of Beat The Frog, the Raw night, helping to launch many new acts. Famously John Bishop’s first gig was there. Starting out life in a room above a pub not far from its current venue at a converted bank on the edge of the buzzing, culturally innovative Northern Quarter district of Manchester city centre. Originally opened and ran by Dave Perkin, his daughter Jessica Toomey now runs the club. Over the 28 years it has been open it’s been fertile ground for burgeoning comics including Johnny Vegas, Peter Kay, Sarah Millican and Jack Whitehall.
