Interviews, reviews and all sorts of news about comedy!
The prestigious, nationwide Amused Moose Laugh Off contest, to search out and discover the next big comedy star, is about to kick off. Entries open on 1st January 2013, and qualifying rounds take place in London, Scotland, and the north of England (in the venue in which Sarah Millican was discovered before going on to win the 2005 competition). Qualifying rounds start at the end of January and places fill up fast so there’s no time to waste.
In association with leading UK DVD company 2entertain, this exciting countrywide talent search for comedy’s brand new comic gems is famed for discovering the comedy stars of the future. Previous Amused Moose Laugh Off winners include Jack Whitehall and more recently Rob Beckett, just back from “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out Here Now! 2012″ replacing Russell Kane, and finalists have included Greg Davies, Rhod Gilbert, Jimmy Carr, Andi Osho, Simon Amstell and Alex Zane.
The audience votes at every stage, whilst the overall winner is ultimately decided by comedy industry professionals, though if the audience decide differently there is a second award of “People’s Champion” awarded for the first time in 2012, to Funmbi, with the overall winner being Richard Todd.
The Amused Moose Laugh Off 2013 final, featuring a celebrity host and an industry-heavy audience, will be held at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2013 with £1500 as the winner’s main prize.
Amused Moose Laugh Off has proved to be a fantastic shop window for new talent, with finalists being quickly signed by leading agents and promoters, as well as having the opportunity to be showcased in Amused Moose Comedy Gangshows in Edinburgh and in London’s Soho Theatre.
So if you want to set your stand-up career off to a flying start, showcase your talents to the comedy industry, take your first steps towards your own DVD and have a shot at the main prize of £1500 to invest in the development of your comedy career, what are you waiting for?
For the entry form and more information go to the brand new Amused Moose website at www.AmusedMoose.com/Awards then just turn up at qualifying rounds eager to perform a few minutes of your funniest gags, hopefully on your way to fame and fortune.
Alternative comedy is a tricky one – for audiences, for comedians and in terms of its own definition. Whilst we are familiar and supposedly comfortable with what we perceive to be mainstream comedy, where does that leave those comedians offering something different? Thom Milson and Mark Stephenson are both comedians who gig regularly on the alternative comedy scene in the North and South of England respectively. They have each given their perspective on alternative comedy – the problems, the successes, its future and more!
Alternative comedy is comedy that takes the presumptions and rules of comedy and plays against them, often abandoning typical form and structure, as well as covering topics that aren’t considered the norm. In Britain, the term is often associated with comedy from the 1980s (and such comedians as Ben Elton, Jo Brand, and Jack Dee) but I feel this association is now out of date. These comedians are now the mainstream, and therefore shouldn’t be considered alternative. Today, I feel the term is more suitable for comedians trying to do things that probably wouldn’t end up on TV in the UK.
When I say it wouldn’t end up on television, this isn’t because it’s bad, in fact it’s pretty damn good. The main reason it wouldn’t end up on TV is because of the subject matter. I could be here all week discussing comedy on TV and how I feel it has become quite stale (it’s almost as if the comics on TV stop trying once they make it on TV) but instead I’m going to talk about why comics I know are starting to explore alternative comedy in the North.
Alternative comedy is quite dark up north, but only dark because of its truth. Comedians here are starting to look into themselves for their comedy: analysing their failures and their insecurities, instead of lampooning celebrities and Greggs. They’re coming from the POV that comedians should very much be on the outside looking in, and I couldn’t agree more.
What we consider alternative comedy up north is actually based quite heavily on what’s happening across the Atlantic with comedians like Louis C.K, Todd Barry, Doug Stanhope, Patton Oswalt, Marc Maron, Paul F. Tompkins, and a whole bunch of others. These comics all look at their own lives, and talk about honest things that have happened to them, whether these things are good or bad. When you watch them they affect you because of the authenticity in their act. That’s what comics here are starting to strive for.
A lot of these American comics are starting to make a name for themselves over here (especially Oswalt, and C.K) yet in the larger scheme of things, they still fall a long way behind acts such as Russell Howard, Jack Whitehall, and Russell Kane, who, in my opinion, seem dull in comparison (or at least dead behind the eyes). Usually, if you know these American comics you’re comedy literate. This means you don’t fit the description of the typical audience in a Northern comedy club.
Some club audiences up here can be fantastic, but most of the time they want jokes about Vajazzles and Pastries; not jokes about the Human condition and the problems we face in society. Those latter topics are often preferred by the comedy literate. That’s the real purpose of alternative comedy in the North I suppose: Comedy for Comedy literate audiences. The audiences these nights seem to attract seem very open for everything, and there’s a very “Art”, “Jazz”, or “Beat” vibe within most of the nights.
When you’re free from the stag nights, the hen do’s, and the people who want Michael McIntyre for free, you’re left with the perfect atmosphere for comedy: audiences that want to be impressed, but don’t have a specific mould in mind, in fact they want something unique and original, even if it isn’t perfect. They’re on your side, and they want to listen to your ideas.
If I said alternative comedy was perfect, I would be a liar. There are still problems with it as a “genre” in the North. The main problem is that many of the comedians in the alternative scene don’t want to be “alternative”, they want to be comics. They’re fine with being considered Alternative, but they want Britain to move forward and away from the gags that often rely on negative stereotypes, sexism, and homophobia, which are still found in “club” comedy at the moment. alternative comedy isn’t alternative because it wants to be, but because it has to be.
This means we have to take ourselves to people who might like us, instead of waiting for people to come to us. This means advertising through the roof, whilst keeping the gigs themselves accessible. This means keeping entrance prices as low as possible, if we even have one. This means that advertising is more difficult for us than the big clubs. In short, we can’t compete. So we’re not.
This is where I feel the real strength of alternative comedy is up North. It’s not just about the comedians, but everyone involved, from the venue to the audience. It’s a community thing. This isn’t something that is achieved in a short amount of time; this is something that takes years. This is what the future of alternative comedy relies on, and it needs the people who are willing to commit. This is why I wanted to write this article.
All of the comedians, audience members, and promoters who may be unhappy with how comedy is at the moment have to work together instead of being isolated. This is how we make new alternative comedy get noticed. We have to spread the word about other nights around the country, we have to e-mail each other with acts that we need to put on, and we need to ask what the audience who come to our night want, and we have to do that, and we have to do it well.
Alternative comedy has to do what British comedy has failed to do so far: embrace the internet. Sara runs this fabulous blog that is a wonderful example of what can be done with a comedy website owned by someone who cares. There isn’t enough of this out there. Nights need to start running websites and blogs, and we all need to work with each other, not compete, and contribute with one another until anyone who might want to see alternative comedy knows exactly where to find it.
It’s achievable. It already exists. Just not up north, yet.
Comedy doesn’t fall into easy categories. The label of alternative comedy, I’ve found, is nearly impossible to define accurately. Historically, it was the movement against the traditional working men’s club comedians by the post-modern, ironic comedy coming out of universities in the late ‘70s. Then it was a protest against something, a true alternative. When alternative comedy, or comedians who follow that lineage, make up 95% of the circuit, the old definition becomes redundant.
Alternative comedy, as I see it, isn’t something you can strictly define; it’s something you can sense definitively. I’m too new to know the time before comedy was this huge business but now there are hundreds of professional comedians now on the career ladder around the circuit, and it becomes a popularity contest. Popular people tend to be followed around by twats without an imagination, like how Ricky Gervais was funny but the comedians copying him aren’t yet earn enough money from comedy to parade around with freshly cut hair and t-shirts emblazoned with ultra-modern sentiments. Crudely, alternative comedy is doing what you think is funny, and not what you think the audience will find funny. How someone would use that to be able to label any comedian as alternative I don’t know, as you’d have to ask the comedian and, if they were mainstream, they’d just tell you what you wanted hear anyway. Or it’s a malleable post-modern term anyone can change to fit their own particular grievances about comedy.
The pull of commercial has long out-weighted critical success, and you have to bare in mind comedy has no great history of criticism like music or film; it’s a handful of critics against three million people watching repeats of Live At The Apollo on BBC One. A lot of mainstream comedy is good enough anyway. No one is calling them racist or sexist any more, so where’s the desire to be alternative? A lot of comics idolise alternative acts like Daniel Kitson and Stewart Lee, because they are generally considered to be the best. Practically most comics aren’t hugely rich and will do what gives them money. It takes a real strength of conviction to turn down big tours and TV opportunities, and fifteen years later have the popularity to sell out the National Theatre like Kitson’s done. It’s the opposite of what the mainstream business side of comedy would ever advise. So most comics are appreciative of good alternative comedy, and everyone makes their own decisions. However, there is a growing strand of comics who do comedy as a gateway to just being on TV – as a comedian or not. And, for some, it’s working. And they don’t care at all as far as I can tell. But then they don’t care about comedy either. Or anything. They’re the dead-eyed feckless youth – in my opinion.
Comedy audiences come for a rollocking good laugh, which is the equivalent to going to live music for a sing-a-long. And I’ve found out it’s awfully embarrassing singing alone in a pub in Piccadilly Circus, especially when the song is a sardonic take on why people used to wear hats more than they do now. Audiences are made up of the general public, and everyone agrees they dun kno’ shit. Being alternative often results in straight-faced praise from a sober-looking man in glasses whereas mainstream comedians are put in front of the Queen by ITV to try and crack that lemon expression of hers. Good audiences aren’t that rare though, you can either play the audience or choose your gigs on different criteria I guess.
Alternative omedy is a great way for comics to steal jokes from people they think no one else knows; hence the disappointment in every open-micer when he realises other people have seen Stewart Lee as well. I speak this as someone who has had one joke stolen. And the comic is still using it. I would get angry but she’s re-appropriated it in such a way it can no longer make sense and, therefore, serve as an actual joke but a rogue statement in an armoury of conventional sentences, and that makes me smile, which happily allows the joke to survive alone from the many deaths imposed on it. The “circuit” could survive with one comedian if they were eager and observant enough, and could play the piano before the interval. It doesn’t need alternative comedy. All popular music now has a rap at the end, transpose that to comedy and ask if the general public cares about difference.
Humour produces a binary reaction. You laugh or you don’t. The only objectively funny things are animals acting like humans and confident people falling over. A joke or an act might not have found the right audience yet, but who really cares? It’s not art, and alternative comedy is a form of entertainment that can get dangerously close to believing it’s an art. There is always a danger of comedy taking itself seriously, and this is truer with alternative because it can go badly without being bad. But comedy doesn’t last beyond its frame of reference and time. It serves no higher purpose. No one laughs when watching A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Globe, unless they’re a wanker, so there’s always got to be a duty to entertain otherwise you’re no better than an actor. So there are problems with alternative comedy but they’re irrelevant because no one cares enough.
As someone who performs regularly at an alternative comedy night in King’s Cross and Stoke Newington – it’s called WEIRDOS, and this snappy copy’s entire objective is to subtly promote the shit out of it into your dumb brain – I can honestly say London audiences are the best! In more honesty, the South treats itself as the most sophisticated place in the world. The North (and they really appreciate that capital letter) has a stronger sense of identity. It’s its own territory that provides a tacit sense of the collective – did you know the founder of the Quakers, George Fox, was from the North/north Leicestershire? However, Londoners see themselves as individuals, which is why they’re on Twitter slinging their small individual thoughts into nothingness and Stephen Fry and the monstrous, devouring nothingness. London is also wrapped like an overbearing ape-mother by many inter-circulating roads called ring roads – the M25 is the largest and most famous! The North has straight motorways: A to B. They like to be direct, like a Geoff Boycott cover-drive or a proper romantic poem like Wordsworth. I know this as, despite refusing to play outside of London unless I get a lot of money, it happens all the time!
Alternative comedy has no future. Anyone who’s alternative will become popular and then be copied and ruined. Although this is only governed by the parameters of alternative comedy I made up to produce this article.
HOWL Alternative Comedy Night in Leeds and Weirdos Comedy in London are both excellent places to check out the alternative comedy scene.
Heineken and leading Edinburgh Festival Fringe venue The Gilded Balloon have announced a new three-year partnership that will install Foster’s as the title sponsor of the prestigious amateur comedy competition, So You Think You’re Funny?
The sponsorship underlines Foster’s long term commitment to discovering and developing up and coming comedy talent.
So You Think You’re Funny? is the leading amateur comedy competition in the UK and has seen the likes of Peter Kay, Lee Mack, Sarah Millican, Johnny Vegas, Dylan Moran and Jack Whitehall as winners and finalists in previous years. The 2012 competition will start on 21st May 2012 with the first regional heat in London and the final being held at The Gilded Balloon during the Edinburgh Festival in August.
“Foster’s and So You Think You’re Funny? is a great fit and we are very excited about the new partnership. We share the same values of developing the best up and coming talent in the comedy industry and we believe our latest comedy collaboration will provide the perfect foundations for a wider talent support network in the future.” - Niall McKee, Brand Manager, Foster’s
“We are particularly excited in this our 25th year of the competition and believe that Foster’s and Gilded Balloon together can discover and nurture the comedy greats of tomorrow!” - Karen Koren, director of The Gilded Balloon
An article about Humour Me: Live! and comedy in general at UCL has been featured in the latest issue of the Camden New Journal and West End Extra.
Article by Dan Carrier
What would you expect if you saw this? Correct – welcome to the Comedy Shed. To an audience of 5 people (4 on chairs and 1 standing) Ed Gamble superbly MC’d a comedy gig…in a shed!
James Acaster was the first comedian to perform delivering some very funny observations on the Loch Ness monster and cows. Ben Target, one of the most exciting up and coming prop comics on the scene, introduced himself personally to each and every member of the audience and, not seeing the size of the “room” as an obstacle, blew up a balloon that took up the remaining space inside this somewhat comedy club and proceeded to leave the shed by CROWDSURFING!!!
The lantern even fell in the middle of the performance so, apart from the few atmospherically-scattered fairly lights, we were sitting in a shed with a comedian performing his set in the dark. Phil Nichol closed the show with his much loved and highly entertaining eskimo song as well as other wonderfully funny musical numbers that had the entire audience singing and literally raising the roof! With a standing ovation, Phil left the stage (the audience member at the back of the shed having to step out of the shed for Phil to leave) and coming back to the somewhat “stage” (the audience member at the back having to step out of the shed for Phil to come back in) for an encore!
The comedy shed was possibly the most innovative, exciting and unpredictable gig I have ever experienced! But what is more exciting is that the comedy shed is one of the many features available in the comedy arena at this year’s Latitude Festival!
Latitude is launching a series of monthly events at the Century Club in Shaftesbury Avenue, London, which will showcase some of the artists lined up for this year’s festival. The event is free for Latitude 2012 ticket holders, Century Club members and members of the Latitude forums and gives you a sneak preview of a special selection of performances booked for the festival across music, comedy, theatre, cabaret, poetry, literature and the arts.
The scheduled dates are:
2012 Longitude events
Monday 5th March
Monday 16th April
Monday 14th May
Monday 11th June
Monday 10th September
Monday 8th October
Monday 12th November
Monday 10th December
Don’t miss out! I really can’t explain just how amazing an experience it was to have some of the best comedians perform a gig in a shed to five people and if you want to experience it and attend the Latitude previews then e-mail longitude@latitudefestival.co.uk or get your tickets here!
For more comedy news, visit comedyblogedy.com/news
The Invisible Dot Ltd is one of the most exciting and innovative production companies in the country. Having worked extensively with cutting edge comedians Tim Key, Mark Watson, Daniel Kitson, David O’Doherty and Simon Amstell they are uniquely placed to to bring audiences the next generation of exceptional acts emerging through the Edinburgh Fringe and the London alternative circuit… The Invisible Dot Tour is taking place for the first time in 2012, a snapshot of the most exciting and funny new acts in the country right now. Check out more info & tickets!
- Accommodation & expenses provided
- You’ll be needed for about 6 hours a day e.g. flyering, sourcing reviews etc.
-You need to be enthusiastic and willing to talk to people! (But you’ll be flyering for some of the best acts in comedy so you’ll want to tell people how great their shows are anyway!)
- Accommodation & expenses provided
- You need experience for this role e.g. basic sound a lights from a sound desk and confident use of a mac.
- You’ll be needed for about 3 – 4 hours a day, plus tech rehearsals on the first day and any extra shows if they get added.
A comedy show piloting student stand-up at UCL (University College London) will take place at The Wilmington Arms on 15th March 2012.
Following the success of UCL’s regular Bright Club, where university staff share a stage with professional comedians and entertainers to dig out the funny side of their work, it’s now time for UCL students to tread the boards.
Humour Me: Live! will feature a line-up of UCL undergraduates and postgraduate students. The majority are comedy virgins and will be performing their very first five minutes of stand-up – a momentous occasion.
The “extremely funny” David Morgan will compere the evening and award-winning Naz Osmanoglu (one third of the sketch group Wit Tank) will headline.
Before the event, professional comedian Bec Hill will hold workshops with the students – training them in the art of stand-up, helping to develop their material and providing general hints and tips on performing. Jonathan Grant, Head of Comedy Talent at Red 24 Management and an established stand-up, will also be coaching the students and guiding those who would like to pursue their interest in comedy further.
Humour Me: Live! is a joint initiative from Comedy Blogedy and Bright Club and stems from the Humour Me podcast for Comedy Blogedy, which also broadcasts on UCL Union Student Radio (Rare FM). Humour Mefeatures interviews with some of the best comedians & sketch groups on the British and international comedy circuit, as well as some of the most prominent and respected members of the comedy industry. Previous guests include Paul Foot, Kate Copstick, Max & Ivan, Katherine Ryan, The Axis of Awesome, Hils Jago, Totally Tom, Phil Nichol & more. The shows are available at www.comedyblogedy.com/audio
Sara Shulman, Editor of Comedy Blogedy and Head of Comedy at UCLU Rare FM said, “This is such a fantastic opportunity for UCL students to perform their first stand-up gig and get a taste of the performance side of comedy. All the guests on Humour Me have given us advice and told us about their experiences in comedy – now UCL students can put everything they have heard into practice!”
Steve Cross, Head of Public Engagement at UCL and co-founder of Bright Club said “For the past three years I’ve been talking UCL staff into trying comedy for the first time, and working with Sara to find out what students can do is the next obvious step. I’m predicting hilarity and probably anarchy, jokes about complicated intellectual concepts, and knob gags.”
Tickets are £5 and all profits of the evening will be donated to the charity Mama Biashara. Tickets can be bought in advance from We Got Tickets at: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/153203
Check out the trailer!
A record-breaking 700 entries have so far been made for the prestigious, nationwide Amused Moose Laugh Off contest, which searches out and discovers the next big comedy stars.
Entries opened on 1st January, but due to 50% more interest than expected extra qualifying rounds have been added including one this coming Sunday in Camden, to accommodate the waiting list that formed for the qualifying rounds in London as well as the North of England and Scotland. There are now just a handful of spaces available in London this Sunday, and in the Ireland rounds in April.
Hils Jago, founder of Amused Moose Comedy and these awards, says “We have been almost overwhelmed by the huge increase in interest this year, and although the qualifying rounds have only just started we’ve already spotted some exciting new talent who we may well be showcasing at the Edinburgh Fringe in August, and London’s Soho Theatre and Leicester Square Theatre the following month. Amused Moose Laugh Off has gone from strength to strength since Jimmy Carr was in the final in 1999, so it’s clearly a top way to showcase your talents to the comedy industry while taking your first steps towards getting an agent and your own DVD deal, plus having a shot at the main prize of £1500 to invest in the development of your comedy career.”
In association with leading UK DVD company 2entertain, this exciting countrywide talent search for comedy’s brand new comic gems is famed for discovering the comedy stars of the future. Previous Amused Moose Laugh Off winners include Jack Whitehall and Sarah Millican.
The audience votes at every stage, whilst the overall winner is ultimately decided by the movers and shakers of the comedy industry. The Amused Moose Laugh Off 2012 final, featuring an international comedy industry panel and a celebrity host, will be held at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2012. It continues to be a fantastic shop window for new talent.
For the entry form and more information go to www.AmusedMoose.com/LaughOff to grab one of the remaining places, and then just turn up at qualifying rounds eager to perform a few minutes of your funniest gags, hopefully on your way to fame and fortune.
TONIGHT (7th Feb 2012) in Camden (arrival 6.30pm, away by 9.30) or SUNDAY (12th Feb) afternoon (arrival noon away by 3.15pm — or by request arrival 3.15pm away by 6.15pm)
Hopefully you’ll be quick enough to get one of the remaining spaces.
It’s unlikely that any other spaces in qualifying rounds of AmusedMoose LaughOff 2012 will arise in London, because the competition is already overfull on Monday evening which is the last qualifying round being held in London.
Entries just opened for the prestigious, nationwide AmusedMoose LaughOff 2012 Competition to search out and discover the next big comedy star - with rounds in London, the north of England (Harrogate), Scotland (Edinburgh) and Ireland (Dublin) from the end of January so there’s no time to waste! The semifinals will be in London, with the Final (won by Jack Whitehall in 2007 amongst an array of brilliant finalists including Andi Osho) as a highpoint of the Edinburgh Fringe in August. In association with leading UK DVD company 2entertain, this exciting countrywide talent search for comedy’s brand new comic gems is famed for discovering the comedy stars of the future.
Talent scouts, managers/agents, producers and bookers for example will be watching the rounds from the Heats onwards, and over half the audience at the Final will be ‘industry’ with the panel including programmers from the biggest international comedy festivals. Audience votes count from the Heats to the Final, but are balanced by industry votes; by doing it this way, winners and finalists emerge who not only are popular with audiences but also have what it takes to be even more successful on television and DVD.
Not only is there a cheque for the winner, and shiny Moose trophies too, but there’s a huge amount of exposure to industry folk which is crucially important. Also 2entertain, who support AmusedMoose LaughOff, will be talent spotting to find DVD stars of the future; Rob Beckett (whose winner’s cheque in 2010 paid for him to go to the Adelaide comedy festival, where he was named International New Comedian Award runner-up) signed with Jason Manford and John Bishop‘s agent, and now has a DVD deal, so his comedy career has developed by leaps and bounds over the past 18 months.
So if you want to set your stand-up career off to a flying start, showcase your talents to the comedy industry, take your first steps towards your own DVD and have a shot at the main prize of £1500 to invest in the development of your comedy career, what are you waiting for?
—————————————————————————————–
Adam Hess, an economics student at the University of Sussex has won the Chortle award for Student Comedian of the Year. After starting off at the UCL heats in March, the 21-year-old from Croydon took the judges by storm with his fast-pace and high energy one liners at the Chortle Student Comedy Award Final at the Edinburgh Fringe .
Hess was also awarded £1,000 along with all the prestige the award holds in the comedy industry. Simon Bird, star of The Inbetweeners, Radio 1′s Tom Deacon and Tom Rosenthal from Friday Night’s Dinner are all previous winners of the award.
Glenn Moore took second place along with £250 – a student at Sheffield University, originally from Brighton, studying for an MA in Broadcast Journalism. Richard Hanrahan came third, a 24-year-old student of film in Edinburgh, originally from Harlow.
Steve Bennett, Editor of Chortle said: “We had a strong and diverse final of the Student Comedy Award today, and I suspect all of these talented performers have a future in comedy. But Adam’s manic energy swung the decision in his favour. He’s a worthy winner.”
—————————————————————————————–
Adam Riches has won the Foster’s Edinburgh Comedy Award for ‘Best Comedy Show 2011′. He was praised by judges for his “trademark mix of character comedy, anarchic stagecraft and a fearless level of audience engagement”. Riches describes his comedy as “fast-paced character comedy with a lot of audience interaction”.
Andrew Maxwell, Chris Ramsey, Josie Long, Nick Helm and Sam Simmons were amongst the short-list for the prize.
Nica Burns, producer of the Foster’s Edinburgh Comedy Awards said: “Congratulations to Adam Riches, who is utterly original, extremely funny and a huge talent. He will no doubt be seen on your television screens in the near future.”
The ‘Best Newcomer’ prize was awarded to Humphrey Ker for his show ‘Humphrey Ker is Dymock Watson: Nazi Smasher’.
Cariad Lloyd, The Chris and Paul Show, Hannibal Buress, Holly Walsh, Humphrey Ker, Josh Widdicombe, Thom Tuck and Totally Tom were all nominated for ‘Best Newcomer’.
The Panel Prize went to The Wrestling, a show that involved 20 comedians and 8 world-class wrestlers.
The awards have been running since 1981 and were formerly known as the Perriers and the If.Comeddies. Al Murray, Steve Coogan and Lee Evans have been previous winners of the prize. Acts are only eligible for the award if they are not “star” names, have not already had a TV series and have not performed under their own name to a 500-seat venue.
505 different shows were seen by the judges over three weeks. Along with the prestige of winning a Foster’s Comedy Award, the ‘Best Comedy Show’ winner receives £10,000 and ‘Best Newcomer’ wins £5,000.
—————————————————————————————–
Comedian Nick Helm has won the Dave award for the ‘Best Joke’ at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2011 has won an award for the best joke of the Edinburgh Fringe:
“I needed a password eight characters long so I picked Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.”
The panel of judges put a selection of their favourite jokes to a public vote. Tim Vine, winner of the best joke at the Edinburgh Fringe 2010, won second place this year.
Helm said: “I knew my joke was the funniest joke of all the other jokes in 2011. Thank you to Dave and all the people that voted for proving me right.”
On the opposite end of the funny scale was Paul Daniels, who won the award for worst joke of the festival:
“I said to a fella ‘Is there a B&Q in Henley?’ He said ‘No, there’s an H, an E, an N an L and a Y’.”
The top ten jokes of the festival were judged to be:
1. Nick Helm: “I needed a password eight characters long so I picked Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.”
2. Tim Vine: “Crime in multi-storey car parks. That is wrong on so many different levels.”
3. Hannibal Buress: ”People say ‘I’m taking it one day at a time’. You know what? So is everybody. That’s how time works.”
4. Tim Key: “Drive-Thru McDonalds was more expensive than I thought… once you’ve hired the car…”
5. Matt Kirshen: “I was playing chess with my friend and he said, ‘Let’s make this interesting’. So we stopped playing chess.”
6. Sarah Millican: ”My mother told me, you don’t have to put anything in your mouth you don’t want to. Then she made me eat broccoli, which felt like double standards.”
7. Alan Sharp: “I was in a band which we called The Prevention, because we hoped people would say we were better than The Cure.”
8. Mark Watson: ”Someone asked me recently – what would I rather give up, food or sex. Neither! I’m not falling for that one again, wife.”
9. Andrew Lawrence: “I admire these phone hackers. I think they have a lot of patience. I can’t even be bothered to check my OWN voicemails.”
10. DeAnne Smith: “My friend died doing what he loved … Heroin.”
Since its online release in June 2011 (distributed at FunnyorDie, Blip, Youtube, Vimeo and iTunes), the independently produced series has seen remarkable audience support. Within just 2 months of the series launch, there have been views exceeding 5,000 across platforms.
The finale episode was inspired by the “holiday episode” format from British comedy sitcoms such as League of Gentlemen and The Office; Completely Normal Activity departs from both the horror and improv formats to share a musical dream sequence which features an originally scripted song performed by the cast and penned by the production team.
The first season debuted on 14th June 2011 on the Completely Normal Activity website and comprises of nine webisodes, five to seven minutes each. The synopsis for the first season is as follows:
Twenty-something slacker Richie (Bryan Beckwith) tries desperately to document suspected “paranormal activity”, only to invite unwittingly a malevolent force into his apartment.
Cast
Richie – Bryan Beckwith
Relle – Muriel Montgomery
Zach – Duncan Miller
Lilah – Erin O’Shea
Judy Amethyst – Martha Hearn
Josiah – Nick Casalini
Private Portions is a sketch-writing collective of graduates from Second City’s Core Writing Program dedicated to crafting intelligent, sophisticated sketch comedy. Completely Normal Activity is Private Portions’ first improvised web series project, filmed on location in Chicago, IL.
An article about Humour Me: Live! and comedy in general at UCL has been featured in the latest issue of the Camden New Journal and West End Extra.
Article by Dan Carrier
A comedy show piloting student stand-up at UCL (University College London) will take place at The Wilmington Arms on 15th March 2012.
Following the success of UCL’s regular Bright Club, where university staff share a stage with professional comedians and entertainers to dig out the funny side of their work, it’s now time for UCL students to tread the boards.
Humour Me: Live! will feature a line-up of UCL undergraduates and postgraduate students. The majority are comedy virgins and will be performing their very first five minutes of stand-up – a momentous occasion!
The “extremely funny” David Morgan will compere the evening and award-winning Naz Osmanoglu (one third of the sketch group Wit Tank) will headline.
A record-breaking 700 entries have so far been made for the prestigious, nationwide Amused Moose Laugh Off contest, which searches out and discovers the next big comedy stars.
Entries opened on 1st January, but due to 50% more interest than expected extra qualifying rounds have been added including one this coming Sunday in Camden, to accommodate the waiting list that formed for the qualifying rounds in London as well as the North of England and Scotland. There are now just a handful of spaces available in London this Sunday, and in the Ireland rounds in April.
By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. More Information
The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this.