Review of the climax of Backyard Comedy Club's new act format

There’s an inevitable brutality to most of the formats by which comedy clubs whittle down the tsunami of desperate open-miccers into those promising enough to get a slot on a regular gig. Hopefuls can dedicate a whole evening to getting just a few seconds of stage time at a gong show before being despatched by that cruellest of percussion instruments.

Comedy Knockout at East London’s Backyard Comedy Club gives everyone a minimum of two minutes, but even that can seem unduly harsh – especially at this Champion Of Champions night, when every act has won through a previous night. Though you can imagine with some new comedians that 120 seconds could seem like a very long time..

As the title indicates, the evening is a series of joke-offs, with comics going head-to-head – or occasionally in a three-way – with audience cheers determining who gets through to the next round, where the set length grows by a minute. It requires comics to front-load their early appearances with their strongest material, then prove they’ve got more in the tank as they progress.

Knocked out in the first round:

• Gabrielle McPherson, with a solid line in north-south stereotypes - a blessing in allowing her to hit the ground running with little set-up required, but with the flip side that the territory is intrinsically familiar. However, she found new angles, even if the delivery wasn’t as fluid as some others’.
• Lithuania’s Donatas Staneilka with some material drawing on his immigrant status and other gags leaning in to the hustle culture of online motivational alpha-males. Perhaps a bit too much going on in a limited time, but the gags are solid.
• Andy Barr, a manic presence as a booze fiend trying – and succeeding – in finding kindred spirits in the audience. The high-intensity performance is appealing, especially, one can imagine, if he was appearing on a night of timid, deadpan newcomers, but he was unlucky to be drawn against a stronger comedian tonight.
• Helen K, a Russian comic as cold and unforgiving as a Siberian winter. Making no concessions to pandering to the audience counterintuitively makes her appealing and suits her more brutal jokes, defined by sharp writing and occasional satirical points about her homeland
• Mathew Ali, who delivers inappropriately bitchy stories about the children in his care during his day job with a likeable low-key camp energy, even if the subject matter is easy pickings. That said, the toddler with a Barry White baritone makes for a particularly amusing image.

A couple of acts got wildcard passes into the second round thanks to a panel including compere David Ward, one of the organisers of the competition. And leaving the contest in that round were:

• Vinny Shiu, who has excellent material about growing up in very non-diverse Portsmouth, and wanting so very much to be white to fit in. Sharp lines are combined with a winning physicality, bringing out cartoon-like expressions on to his malleable face. His dad being homophobic but trying – and failing – to be subtle about it is another rich seam. Another act unlucky not to go forward.
• Manraj Bahra, who starts with some brisk wordplay for the easy wins before telling us how he works in a corporate environment in Slough, just like The Office. There’s wry commentary on that LinkedIn world, and a delicious swipe at the comedian Ricky Gervais became after co-creating the sitcom masterpiece.
• Alfie Dundas has an air of floppy-haired privilege, though his comedy focuses outwards with  light political jabbing about Donald Trump’s delusions of becoming Pope and gags about how pathetically the Catholic Church dealt with the child abuse scandal. The material’s fine, but lacks much character and he ended on a joke that resulted in such silence he conceded the round there and then…

And so to the finalists: 

• Daisy Roberts, who isn’t the only comic to paint a picture of being a rootless thirtysomething, though her dispatches have a palpable air of authenticity. Her special strength, though, is mocking men – an unfair cliché about most female comedians but one she gleefully grasps with both hands, being gloriously unkind about balding men, protein powder bros, and the ‘hot dumb guys’ she has a penchant for dating, providing her with a rich seam of pisstaking material.
• Mark Flynn doesn’t need anyone else to ridicule him, as he’s relentlessly self-deprecating about being old and fat. Those are his words and he’s amused by the younger generation pretend not to see fat, even when it’s right in front of them. There are plenty of laughs at the expense of his miserable, lazy life, but it’s not the only tool in his box. A routine about how commonplace murder was in 1980s East London is a fine bit of grimly black comedy about his neighbourhood.
• Nick Everitt revels in self-effacing material, too. He looks creepy – JD Vance-level creepy – which isn’t me being unkind, the premise of his entire set. It might seem a bit one note, especially when you add in his suitably robotic delivery, but he makes great capital out of his chilling serial-killer vibe. If I was to say he slayed, you wouldn’t be sure if I was being metaphorical, so let’s just say he did really well.
• Ridwan Hussain also played up his insecurities, offering an organic way into the myriad, and almost obligatory, ‘this is what I look like’ material. He’s a bit inconsistent, especially in building momentum, but has some great bits if you like your comedy mean. A routine about motivational speaker Nick Vujicic, who was born without arms or legs, is cruel but brutally, darkly funny – the laughs peppered with mutterings of ‘Jesus Christ’ from the audience. 
• Gabriel Madden doesn’t appear that comfortable in his own skin, though the playful, relaxed to-and-fro with the front row belies that. His ‘things you shouldn’t say in a best man’ speech is the stand-out, while he has a withering attitude to middle-class self-appointed ‘empaths’ which is on the money. However, jokes about being circumcised and another with an ‘and that was just the teachers’ punchline felt tired. There’s lots of jokes here, even if the quality control’s not rigorous. But while he needed a wild card to get him past the first round, a strong ending won over the audience, who rewarded him with the biggest cheer of the night, and the Champion of Champions title.

• Pictured above from left are the finalists Daisy Roberts, Nick Everitt, Mark Flynn, MC David Ward, Ridwan Hussain and winner Gabriel Madden.

Review date: 3 Jul 2025
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Backyard Comedy Club