Robert Commiskey - Live Review

American emigree Robert Commiskey ratchets up his geekiness and social awkwardness for his disjointed, sometimes confused set, but struggles to make any real impact. He startswith some straightforward but effective material about British habits he’s learned of since living here - not least our love of the double entendre.

His observation about our phone sign-offs was especially incisive, but he couldn’t sustain the quality, and other sections of his set held together less well, with the lines between idea and punchline frequently getting tangled. He’s not bereft of ideas, but expressing them properly can elude him.

Julian Deane - Live Review

Julian Deane has an obvious self-assurance and ruthlessly efficient delivery of well-polished punchlines. He may not fit the financial definition yet, but the man’s definitely a pro, with plenty of lines that our top stand-ups would be proud of.

He reveals something of his life as a father to two sets of children, but only in as much as it serves as the feedline for the next gag. It’s a very American approach, but what it lacks in depth, it makes up for in pace.

The only criticism is there are a couple too many jokes that rely on the proven technique of ‘pull back to reveal’ – but the man clearly has a career in comedy cut out for him.

Andrea Hubert - Live Review

As a tall girl with a very distinctive look, Andrea Hubert immediately stands out. She’s a thoroughly engaging presence, too, with a quirkily descriptive approach to her observations. In truth, she is probably better than her material, which can be slow to build – but she can get laughs from comments that aren’t all that funny, which is definitely a gift.

Key to it all is the tableau she so convincingly paints of her life as 30-year-old, single, often-unemployed cat-loving Jewish girl. She establishes this persona quickly, and all material hangs off it so naturally that you are drawn instinctively into her world.

Alan Sharp - Live Review

Bedraggled Alan Sharp serves up a mixed bag in his endearing West Country accent. Obligatory jokes about inbreeding or about him looking like a washed-up Jesus do him no favours, yet on the other hand he shows a mastery of the pun with just one brilliantly funny band name.

Tales of a poverty-induced existence on supermarkets’ unappealing Value ranges are witty and evocative, too. It averages out to a solid, dependable routine, if not quite enough to stand out.

Anna Freyberg - Live Review

Forget the misguided old cliche about female comics always talking about periods; one of the more common lines of attack is for women stand-ups to paint themselves as a desperate, borderline-psychotic stalkers.

Kiwi Anna Freyburg adds to the tally, though she does so with some style, even though her relative lack of experience shows in her performance. She comes across as delivering a monologue that’s carefully written and rehearsed, rather than the looser, more conversational approach most comics have at least learned to fake. But her extended metaphor comparing her non-existent love life to a cafe’s bakery products was wittily whimsical, with plenty of warmth to her presence and admirable lines in the writing.

Inel Tomlinson - Live Review

Inel Tomlinson seems to have ODed on Def Comedy Jam... but a few bad habits aside (‘all the guys make some noise!’) the delivery techniques he’s picked up stand him in very good stead: exuberant, playfully confident and full of oomph, he engaged with the audience and breathed life into his observational material.

His signature routine revolves around the poor-quality trainers he had as a kid – a combination of nostalgia, celebration of rubbish things, and strong delivery that could make him the black Peter Kay, for better or for worse. He even makes the hack topic of Ryanair work, thanks to an inspired comparisson, though he doesn’t have the same luck in making the routine about Super Mario Brothers shine, marking a rare misstep.

Daniel Smith - Live Review

Deadpan Daniel Smith is one of the new breed of anti-comedians, deconstructing everything while being in no rush to get to punchlines, nor putting much emotion into his set. These things prove irritating, but when he deigns to move on to more substantial material, he demonstrates a decidedly original approach, not only to his chosen subjects – 14th century philosophers, anyone? – but also in the construction of gags and the elegant language he uses. While his set is still unnecessarily awkward, there are germs of brilliance here.

Dave Gibson - Live Review

A vision in beige, Dave Gibson has the dress sense of Flight of the Conchords’s fictional manager Murray – but his routine is a lot more flamboyant. How you take it will depend entirely on your appetite for cheese, as his silly, punny material is sold with an unremittingly upbeat, slightly false, good humour and plenty of sparky banter.

The audience laps up his entertaining, high-energy shtick, with his pacy, funny routines about being a TV audience warm-up man, his encounter with a delightfully dim heckler, and Greg’s the bakers. His broad, relentlessly jokey approach does divide opinion; but fans of the foolish are likely to love it.

Mark Cornell - Live Review

Mark Cornell has an uncertain routine, largely concerning everyday turns of phrase. Often this seemed like inordinate pickiness, while the gag about small changes to sentences making a big difference is a much weaker version of a Demetri Martin take on the same idea.

Yet the section about the throwaway phrase ‘oh yeah’ has a fine payoff, and the flourishes that adorned the core material showed a keen, eccentric wit. It’s that he needs to harness without getting too obtuse, as some of his lines unquestionably did.

Mark Restuccia - Live Review

Mark Restuccia has an assured delivery and some decent jokes to boot. But his sense of humour is inconsistent – at one moment he’d be indulging in some ironic misogyny or hard-edged nastiness, the next it would be all amiable whimsy about talking to a cat. It made for a mixed bag of a set, but with enough corking lines to satisfy, more often than not when he kept off the harsher material, all delivered with unwavering faith.

Dan Wright - Live Review

Dan Wright comes across as Mr Confident – and no surprise since he’s been part of the Electric Forecast double act for about a decade before going solo, and has cult fame as the diminutive half of Big Cook Little Cook on children’s TV. Perhaps in rebellion to that, he did seem to use the word ‘fuck’ with unnecessary frequency – or perhaps it just stood out more because of his background.

Wright’s delivery is hugely animated, with big physical gestures that pretty much make the act, given that some of the material, about being ginger or affecting the accents of urban youth (however accurately) is rather safe.

In contrast, the section about the bizarre Post-It notes his Dad leaves around the house is inherently stronger and more distinctive, so more soberly delivered.

Pete Beckley - Live Review

Deadpan Pete Beckley has a nice poise, although a lot of his by-the-book writing makes for very familiar territory: starting by referencing a famous person he looks like and encompassing internet dating, Facebook (with the obligatory ‘poke’ reference) and how predictive text can hilariously garble messages - even though most modern phones are more advanced than that. Even the old ‘get off, you’re rubbish’ heckle putdown gets worked into the set as if it were material.

As a novice he makes a few easy-to-rectify mistakes - his payoff about a lap-top dancing club is telegraphed since it immediately follows material about computers, and a callback about ‘a friend of mine’ is redundantly explained even after it gets the laugh – but getting more adventurous in his inspiration will be a more difficult hurdle than technical tweaks.

A few enjoyably offbeat lines make their way into his set – but there’s not quite enough of them.

Richard Rycroft - Live Review

Newcomer Richard Rycroft’s point of difference is that he’s 50. Not all that old by circuit standards, but positively antiquated compared to most of the eager young bucks making their start in stand-up. His age, therefore, makes up a decent chunk of his short routine as he sets out to prove how familiar he is with youth culture... only to get everything slightly wrong.

Clever wordplay and knowing malapropisms get the laughs, even if the gags are sometimes smarter than he gets credit for, while snatches of pop lyrics maintain the image of a Dad trying too hard to show he’s still ‘with it’. The Mr Nice Guy persona makes this all rather endearing, helping him earn a ‘special commendation’ on the night, and it will be interesting to see how he expands his act beyond the horizons of being middle-aged.

Kai Humphries - Live Review

Proud Geordie Kai Humphries started his short set on wobbly ground, with all-too familiar gags about the glib morale-booster ‘whatever doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger’ or nicking flowers from roadside tributes. But he hasn’t yet settled on one particular style, and if you don’t like those lines, he’s also got whimsical surrealism and disproportionate rage in his armory, too.

In the first, he cannot help but sound like Ross Noble, the similarity of accent only drawing attention to the similarity of approach, but he does pull enough laughs out of his Narnia-based nonsense to make it work. But it’s the misplaced fury that comes off best, as he rants frustratedly about the big issues, such as the fake drawer kitchen designers include beneath the sink. The variety of approaches suggests he’s still got to define his distinctive voice, but there’s enjoyable stuff here.

Jason Patterson - Live Review

Delivery is Jason Patterson’s strong suit, effortlessly drawing the audience in with his opening anecdote – only to blemish it with a tired pull-back-and-reveal punchline. But his tales of traveling to New York and the Philippines, where being black caused endless curiosity among the locals, kept the crowd interested. He hasn’t yet got strong enough punchlines to always back it up, but Patterson’s likeable yet authoritative stage presence is thoroughly engaging.

Mike O'Donovan - Live Review

Mike O'Donovan had a warmth to his unhurried delivery, but he took far too long to set up such idea as lazy people being transported on airport travellators or the mathematical impossibility of ‘giving 110 per cent’. In his best moments, he hints at a seam of abject depression that has the potential to be used to better effect – but this wasn’t his night; and he seemed to know it.

Tony Dunn - Live Review

Gloomy Tony Dunn has dark material and measured Scottish accent that inevitably invites comparisons with Frankie Boyle, in which he can only come out the worse. He has a nice manner about him, saying hip phrases like ‘this is how I roll’ in an entirely unsuitable tone, but several of his ideas – such as finding it hard to distinguish between the genuinely mentally ill and people speaking on their hands-free mobile – are over-familiar.

Sam Gore - Live Review

This acerbic Leeds student is fast filling up his trophy cabinet, having scooped the Hull Comedian Of The Year and the Beat The Frog World Series titles last year, and taking the silver in the English Comedian Of The Year competition only last month.

Sam Gore’s act is so harsh and abrasive you could probably polish diamonds with it. His persona is that of a supercilious, arrogant and snide nihilist whose unremitting tide of poisonously disdainful insults are delivered with an ever-patronising sneer. He uses multiple pile-ups of venomous adjectives to powerful effect, producing laughs from the sheer ferocity of his attacks. ‘I can be a bit offensive,’ he admits, which is about the only sentence he utters that contains understatement.