The Frog and Bucket Comedy Club in Manchester has announced that Aussie comic Anna Spark has won this year’s World Series competition final. Her audaciously funny, close-to-the-bone material was a hit with the voting audience and comedy industry folk alike.
The panel prize went to the softly spoken Michael Mannion with his beautifully crafted gags that had a habit of sneaking up on you. Plus the runner up was the half Venezuelan James Heath with some finely honed material including his mischievous take on environmental pollution.
Spark wins £250 and paid work at the Frog; Mannion and Heath will both be cracking open their bottles of champagne.
Around five hundred acts have passed through the Beat the Frog newcomer gong show night this last year. The winners of each show were entered into the competition that ran throughout October, eventually whittled down to the nine in the final, which took place on Monday.
The other contenders this year were:
Liverpuddlian Sian Davies who took a working class comedy show to the Edinburgh Fringe this year.
The deadpan Mamoun Elagab who was a finalist in the BBC Comedy Award this year,
Chloe Levi Joyce works behind the bar at the Frog and Bucket and is in her third year of a comedy degree at Salford University. She won Beat the Frog on her first ever gig.
Romanian comedian Victor Patrascan who performed a solo show at the Edinburgh Fringe this year.
Hailing from Heywood just north of Manchester, in the daytime Ben Silver works in a pathology lab.
From Newcastle, Louise Young is currently an office worker but has been doing comedy for three years.
On the night there was a special performance from last year’s winner, the deliciously dark Kathryn Mather, and the compere was the highly acclaimed and always wonderful Dan Nightingale (pictured right with Spark)
The gong style Beat the Frog night was introduced at the club in 2003. Acts fight to stay on stage for the full five minutes but audience members have been issued with three dreaded cards, if all three go up during the act’s set the Frog sounds his croak and it’s better luck next time for the act. It sounds harsh but a supportive atmosphere is encouraged by the compere. That said though if you’re not funny, you’re off! The overall winner on the night is decided by a ‘clap off’.
The Frog and Bucket club first opened, like many comedy clubs do, in a room in a pub. But such was its popularity back in 1994 that it soon sought out its own dedicated venue taking on its current premises, a former bank building, at the top of Oldham Street in Manchester’s hipster haven The Northern Quarter. Realising the importance of nurturing new talent it quickly added a new act night to its professional shows. The rest as they say is comedy history as the great and good have passed through and indeed returned on a regular basis it’s such a favourite gig. Who knows who will be to come? It just gets more exciting year on year.
