Alex Mason was an interesting opener for the second half of the show. I'm not sure that it helped that she was hard to pin down. Was she going to be a brutally honest Sarah Silverman-type stand-up or more loopy like Lou Sanders. Eventually she went down the Sanders route with some material about smutty books and a dating routine which involved an audience member reading from a script. Pretty ambitious for a relative novice and it worked very well. Not placed but plenty of potential.
James Danielewski had no difficulty winning over the crowd explaining that although he comes from Grimsby he now lives in Brighton and still has that Grimsby accent which, for some reason sounds strange coming out of a gay man. Which did make me wonder are there no gay men in Grimsby? It helped that Danielewski had an easy, amiable manner onstage which should takle him a long way. And good material too, about going to Pride and badgers and 'benders' (his word - it seemed to be a night for reclaiming words - Fox earlier used the word 'chav' in a positive way). Danielewski could have easily been winner but instead was joint runner-up.
It's hard following an act that has just made an impact and when Clair Carty came on people were probably wishing that Danielewski was still onstage. She was perfectly good, and had a nice take on life as a mum, healthy eating and old school dick picks and the problems of pixels on early wifi, but this was such a consistently impressive line-up she felt like one of the less distinguished finalists. Which is not to say she went down badly, more that she was up against tough opposition.
Matthew Ali's greatest pleasure about being gay is...being able to sweep his hair back flamboyantly, even though he doesn't have much. An odd claim, but he had the charisma to get everyone in the audience quickly trying it out and liking it too. His set was pretty wide ranging though, tackling light subjects and heavy subjects both with a lightness of touch. I'd never really thought that rice could be racist (ricist?) but Ali thinks it is and explained his theory in such a winning way a thin conceit seemed to work. Well, maybe not quite winning, but it did bag him joint runner-up spot.
I don't know if the running order was random or planned but it certainly worked in Amelia Hamilton's favour with her energetic music and comedy closing the competition on a high. She is what we call in the comedy criticism world one of those unashamedly middle class women with a nice line in dirty hip hop. It's a format that could write itself but the combination of rap and one-liners was a successful formula. And between songs there was a very relatable routine about the names we give people in our phone contacts lists. i've heard similar riffs before but that didn't stop this one from helping Hamilton land another joint-runner-up spot.
Three runners up might sound like indecision on the part of the judges, but trust me – i was one of the judges – it was more a reflection of the strength and depth of talent on the night.
Pictured front row (left to right) - Archit Goenka, James Danielewski, Amelia Hamilton, Claire Carty. Back row (left to right) - Matthew Ali, Andrew Fox, Harrison Thomas, Steph Cassin, Alex Mason.
Picture: James Ennis
