Fourteen acts made it through the heats into the final of this year's Leicester Square Theatre Comedian of the Year competition. That's a lot of fun on a Saturday afternoon and given that this is a competition for newcomers you might have expected the occasional dud. Some of the acts felt a little close to a stand-up course template but they all got their share of laughs and the full house was well entertained.

 

After some skilful warm-up from compere and Edinburgh Comedy Award winner Sam Nicoresti, proceedings kicked off with Hazel Donovan. She set out her stall pretty quickly, explaining how she had spiced up her 25 year marriage by...ending it. This was one of the more formulaic acts on the bill, a little static and even if you couldn't predict the punchline, the rhythms meant you could kind of see it coming. But Donovan had a good comic persona, like a more jaded, smuttier Maisie Adam or Zoe Lyons.

 

Second act Rosie Wood could have actually been Hazel's Gen Z daughter. She was wacky, where Donovan was deadpan, jittery where Donovan was motionless. Her main thrust was wired and zany, going off on flights of fancy about being a Hollywood star while the reality was working in a coffee shop. I thought she had something and on a bill where there were a lot of conventional observational acts she certainly stood out.

 

Charlie Firth was the first of a number of cookie cutter male stand-ups, finding the funny in his early performances in the school nativity play. He was maybe more assured than he deserved to be given the generic nature of some of his material but he was certainly crowdpleasing - or maybe he just had a lot of friends in the audience.

 

Ramsey Smith was another young confident male. His only real selling point was that he was a matey Australian. Given that he only had five minutes to impress he was actually quite ambitious, touching on transgender issues and risking dividing the audience. He just about seemed to pull it off.

 

Gabriel Madden had a neat rug-pulling start which I won't reveal as he probably starts all of his gigs with it. Madden is in his late twenties and Jewish and while he had good thoughts on these subjects, he was even better when he did some crowdwork, generating some welcome banter in the limited time. 

 

Just as the acts were getting a little identikit, Fab Goualin strolled on and made an instant impact. He is part-French part-Nigerian and was quick to make some pre-emptive punchlines about racial stereotypes. He swiftly moved on though to a witty account of living with his boyfriend in Brighton and when the material was weak he always had his strong stage presence to fall back on.

 

After Fab's laid back approach Lizzie Simpson was like a stick of dynamite being lobbed into the theatre, a working class woman with a couldn't-give-any-fucks attitude. And yet despite this devil may care approach there was a vivid streak of well thought out personal humour to her routine about being a randy working class woman. She certainly finished the first half with a bang and justifiably pocketed second prize and £500.

 

Glasgow comic Alan Jay made an instant impact at the start of the second half with a gag about having a scar on his head because when he was a baby his smoking mum dropped the wrong fag. Well, that's one way to announce you are gay. Growing up with heroin addicted parents he clearly had some dark material to dig into but found some comic lightness too. i thought he might be a winner, but it underlines the strength of the final that he wasn't even placed.

 

And things got better from there. For a competition for newcomers, Londoner Roman Harris felt like the finished article. The former firefighter has recently gone full time as a comic and it looks like he made the right decision. His five-minute set was a pocket-sized origin story, talking about his life and living in Brixton. It all ended on a high with a smart callback and there was a palpable buzz as he left the stage. It was no surprise that he picked up first prize and £1500.

 

Perhaps next act Dom McGovern benefited a little from the good mood in the room when he also went down very well and bagged third place and £250. I thought his fulminating middle class camp outrage was a little too much like Tom Allen. But there was also some good writing here which suggests he might evolve into something more original. 

 

Ajay Rose was another act who seemed impressively comfortable onstage - this might have been the biggest audience he has ever faced but he was still relaxed enough to pause and calmly pick up his bottle of water mid-set. His observational schtick about the modern world's absurdities was nothing to get into a sweat about but it was perfectly OK. 

 

Alex Mitchell had plenty of selling points to help him stick out. He has Tourettes and balance issues and is gay. Put these together and you've clearly got a memorable act. It was no shock to discover that he has already appeared on Britain's Got Talent. He also did pretty well here, with the crowd lapping up his self-deprecating gags and some semi-improvised patter when his tics became so severe he couldn't get to a punchline. He is clearly a very good comic writer - one of his gags was a recent competition winner. It's here if you want to know what it is. 

 

Joe Peden was another distinctive act. He came on dressed as a pirate and spent the first minute silently putting on his red headband. either audacity or a way of hiding a lack of script. He was another act who bravely engaged the audience, press ganging one punter into joining him on the high seas. It felt a little too much like a novelty act but it was enjoyable enough for this short burst. Needless to say compere Sam Nicoresti came on and used the line that I'd already put in my notebook - original pirate material.

 

And finally the night, sorry, afternoon, ended with Charlie Lewis. whose one-liners and puns were something of a palate cleanser after the previous act's nonsense. A cheesy but nice way to round-off the show. I initially thought there were too many acts, but with such a high standard it would have been harsh not to let everyone in this group take part in this annual showcase.