The first of six heats of the BBC New Comedy Award, the winner (and possibly some of the runners up) of this will progress to the semi-finals, which are recorded at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Being the early heats, you might expect the comedians to be relatively weak, but there actually wasn't a dud joke between them. This was a solid hour of good comedy. Obviously not quite as polished as some, but all ten gave good showings. They also had a decent range of topics, covering such personal bugbears as a catholic upbringing, the difficulties of being a soft southerner and the ever popular general election/Brexit palaver.
The least funny comedian here was probably actually Nish Kumar, who was hosting. Rather repetitive and kept to very basic audience interaction. However, this might well have been an intentional choice to avoid any risk of upstaging the less tested novices, which would be reasonable.
Good spread though, and I'll be following the competition with interest. I won't spoil the winner completely, but I will tell you it was the one the judges liked the most.
Recommended.
Tagged: Radio Comedy Cast Stand-up