After the interval, however, things took a turn for the really weird with Candy Gigi Markham, who came on screaming in a big white Victorian frock, a lipstick smeared mouth and mad hair. I thought for a moment it was a prank from veteran clown Chris Lynam, but it turned out to be a women who, in a rare moment of clarity, said she was a psychiatrist in real life. Elsewhere she ate and spat out some green vegetables, smeared cream on her face and played with a vibrator. I actually quite like boundary-pushing acts like this, but I remember reading how in the old days people would go to the lunatic asylum and watch the inmates for fun. That was the feeling I had here.

Next up was another curveball, but in a good way. Kelly Kingham is an older comedian but a new one on me and I spent most of his act trying to work out where he was coming from and what exactly his schtick was. He was a little bit camp but mentioned his wife. He was a little bit old school, but also seemed intermittently knowing. And he kept touching the mic stand as if he had OCD. His delivery was hesitant yet very precise and as his act went on he built up a good head of steam. It was all strangely compelling. He was one of my favourite acts of the night but I thought I was going out on a limb. I was delighted to discover that other judges agreed and Kingham picked up joint third place.

Thunderbards, two young men who looked barely out of school, was the first conventional sketch act of the night and maybe suffered because they were actually too slick, performing three very fast sketches in almost as many minutes. It wouldn't surprise me at all if they do well in Edinburgh in a few years but maybe there was not enough yet to distinguish them on this eclectic bill.

Pete Dobbing was another unusual act who looked like a traditional stand-up and had the rhythms of a stand-up but whose whole act turned out to be a story about how to save money if you want to store luggage in London (hint - it's a variation on the old gag about getting your laundry done cheaply by donating your clothes to Oxfam then buying them back after they've been washed). Nicely told and pretty funny too, but nothing outstanding.

The judges were probably flagging a little by now but Garrett Millerick woke them up with a delivery that could probably have been heard in Hackney. Big, bombastic and bearded he reminded me of Nick Helm at the outset but then had a different angle. No self-pity here, instead Millerick wanted us to stop being nice to the elderly. There was some decent logic at play as he explained that the elderly used to be heroic war veterans but the current 70-year-olds were nothing of the sort. It was cleverer than it initially appeared and bagged Millerick second spot.

The standard had been consistently high all night and after Millerick Twayna Mayne was a big contrast - small and deadpan and a little like a black female Jack Dee, she had a great line in moaning about the way people get her name wrong - inevitably she gets called Shania Twain. There was something very unexpected about her and she thoroughly deserved here joint third place alongside Kelly Kingham.

I was impressed by the second sketch act of the night, female trio Vinegar. I'd heard of them before as Vinegar Knickers and it was announced before they came onstage that they have dropped the "knickers" which I thought deserved a bigger laugh. They did two very striking sketches - one involving faulty electrical goods and rap and the other conducting a quiz which was not what it seemed. I thought they performed well and had some unusual ideas, but I suspect they came across as just a little too middle class and maybe the feeling with other judges was that we already have enough middle class female sketch combos thank you very much. 

And so to the final act, who was maybe the most normal of the night. Wilson was a blokey standup from Penge with gags about Sarf London v posh Bloomsbury and a song about drinking Stella at work - and, of course not doing the kind of job which goes well with alcohol. Arthur Smith said at the outset that at least two acts in the final traditionally die on their arse. None died tonight and if Wilson;s laughs were limited that was probably more to do with exhaustion in the audience than the quality of his act. Congratulations to the organisers for making the night run so slickly. The result was announced by 9.45pm, which must be some kind of record.