Steve Bugeja is set to tour across the UK with his 4th solo show Almost building on the success of his run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. He will perform his latest and most confessional stand up hour yet from 8th September to 23rd February, including 6 nights at London’s Soho Theatre from 1st to 6th October. Read more below clip...
Steve Bugeja won the BBC New Comedy Award in 2013 with a strikingly nerdy high energy set. Despite his ongoing success he is as neurotic as ever, which is handy as it is one of the many things that makes him so funny. In his new show Unpronounceable Bugeja airs his various angsty concerns and in particlar his frustration that people tend to pronounce his surname wrong. Steve, I feel your pain.
It is never easy being the last act on the bill in a comedy competition, but Steve Bugeja won the BBC Radio New Comedy Award in 2013 when he closed the show. His performance was so striking he felt like a headlining act rather than another competitor. He is not doing anything particularly radical, his neurotic style is geeky in a self-mocking Mark Watsonish way, but Bugeja showed a maturity and confidence that clearly impressed the judges.
Winners of awards always have a little more more pressure on them when they do their first full shows, but I don't think pressure will be a problem for Steve Bugeja, who won the 2013 BBC New Comedy Award. He has previously supported Russell Kane on tour and if you can cope with Kane’s ebullient fanbase you can cope with anything. Bugeja’s style is nervy and nerdy, but also razor-sharp as he rattles out anecdotes. Day Release sounds like a right old yarn too.
Who knows best, critics or the public? This is a question that usually comes up with big stars. Mrs Brown's Boys regularly gets a critical hammering despite being hugely popular. Peter Kay has his knockers despite being a consistent crowdpleaser. Elsewhere critics adore Stewart Lee while the general public can be divided between those who get him and those who don't.
Perhaps this is what all comedy talent competitions should be like. Short, with a small line-up and, most importantly, of a very high standard. Broadcast live on Radio 2, nobody dared overrun, making proceedings whizz by. Previous winners of the BBC New Comedy Award have included Rhod Gilbert, who was one of the judges tonight, alongside Chortle's Steve Bennett and the Head of BBC Radio Comedy Jane Berthoud. But while the judges mulled over the performances, the result was left to a listeners' vote.
