Review of the final of the Ricky Gervais-backed competition

Can we trust the wisdom of crowds? This new competition run by Dutch Barn vodka has one of the best prizes in comedy – a £5,000 cash prize and the chance to open for brand co-owner Ricky Gervais at Wembley Arena – with the champion chosen entirely by audience vote.

Punters from the earlier rounds certainly picked a solid line-up for the final at London’s Leicester Square Theatre last night – although had you been curating a bill, you’d probably want more than two women to 13 men – well, unless you’re certain well-known comedy clubs…

Valeria Vulpe went on to win that coveted prize. A still, deadpan presence, she started by asking the crowd to think about their exes, spreading an awkward feeling of uncertainty where this was heading. But this inscrutable comic held her nerve, knowing it would pay off later.

She’s from Moldova, which gives her unique selling point, with its proximity to Russia and the notion it’s a lawless place with a tumultuous past providing a dark undertow to her material. She has the advantage of very few people knowing the truth about her homeland, so can paint whatever picture she wants, and subvert it too. With a mordant sense of humour and unique viewpoint, she was certainly a worthy winner.

Second place, and a not-to-be sneezed at £1,000, went to another East European with a muted style: Lithuanian Evaldas Karosas. After a wry demonstration that he's mastered at least one English regional accent, the bulk of his set revolved around how broke he was. However it’s surely the routine about trying to suck his own penis – a train of thought that never quite goes in the direction you think it will – that is the most memorable.

Two acts shared third place, with Donal Vaughan and Roman Harris each receiving £500.

Irishman Vaughan’s four-minute set was almost entirely self-deprecatory, but he’s got a witty way of describing just how overweight, unattractive and potentially creepy he thinks he looks. He’s witty with it, and cheerfully accepting of his lot – not an ounce of ‘poor me’ here. We first reviewed him more than decade ago, so no surprise that it’s a funny and assured, if unflattering, self-portrait.

Roman Harris also has a hugely appealing vibe, affable and vibrant with a nice-guy demeanour as he tells of how he grew up with criminals – and how he chose a different path. 

He can, however, turn off the engaging persona and unleash a less polished character if he wants to play the race card for a laugh. The only problem is his wife bests him at the game with her alter-ego. There seems a lot here that’d be good to unpack over a longer set, and he’s got the likability and playfulness to keep people listening.

Tonight’s winners were chosen by the audience giving each act a rating out of five after each set using their phones – their constant presence providing something of a distraction, along with the hubbub of discussions over Thanyia Moore’s skilful compering. Using an intrusive duck call rather than the customary red light to tell acts their time was up was another rookie mistake from organisers, but not enough to put anyone off their game. 

Another unusual decision was to drop pro acts Sean McLoughlin and Red Richardson - both of whom have opened for Gervais – into the middle of the contestants, but it kinda worked.

Raul Kohli – who has been presenting solo shows at Edinburgh for 12 years –  had the unenviable job of opening the gig, but his experience and supercharged positivity set a gleeful tone. He has a few quips about the racism he’s encountered but ultimately paints a heartwarming picture of multicultural Britain that feels vital at the moment.

Like Vaughan, Mike Carter has a lot of self-effacing descriptions of himself, with amusing ways of saying he looks like an overweight stoner into gaming before touching on darker subjects such as depression and suicide. It’s a solid set, which doesn’t offer too many flourishes or comedic surprises, despite the personal nature of the subject matter.

Affable Ravi Sani played it safe, too, with a story of hallucinating on mushrooms that’s just another ‘I was so high, man…’ tale. The character study of his ever-haggling Indian dad is more promising, though the payoff is predictable.

Mags McHugh was an audience favourite – in fact she looked to be the winner from a straw poll Moore took of the audience. However, her shtick of being an apparently sweet looking older lady saying rude things such as, for example, being fisted, is pretty basic. Ditto reading out 50 Cent lyrics. McHugh also leans into edge-queen territory, telling us snowflakes to just ‘be offended and go on to "Twatter"’ to complain about it. It surely plays to the Gervais fanbase, but it’s a wearisome posture.

Welshman Andy Hillier offered a gentler approach, despite also touching on inappropriate thoughts – but with more playfulness in his social violations. Comments about women’s weight being a prime example. He’s perhaps a little low-wattage and ambling for a short set that favours punchiness, but he’s quietly amiable company with a solid payoff.

Keefy Jewell opens with a couple of mischievously non-PC lines which successfully break the ice, though characterising all Germans as Nazis is more predictable than transgressive. Likewise observational material about shopping in Lidl and deceiving the scanners at a self checkout is pretty simple stuff, even if sold with confidence. 

After a quick gag likening cats to stepdads, Highlands comic Matt Black recounted an engaging story of picking up a creepy hitchhiker, although he was perhaps rather too straightforward about it. But he made up in attention-holding detail what he lacked in added-value punchlines.

The night’s theme of self-deprecation continued with Ridwan Hussain, wittily telling us how he’d be too insecure to commit a crime for fear of how he’d be described. Even with the slightly wild look, his material is unexpectedly weird – in a good way – with a teasing delivery that misdirects before amusing and surprising punchlines. A strong contender who might consider himself unlucky not to be placed.

David Arnold opens with a visual gag offering a nod to old-school comedy, a slightly cheesy vibe he maintains for a minute or so himself before segueing into a story of shared childhoods baths that evokes nostalgia – but the sort that reminds us how terrible things used to be. His jocular tone makes this all the more effective.

It’s not so inspiring when a comic starts with the clichéd ‘I know what you’re thinking: XXX has let themselves go.’ And then Keith Millar had a joke about a doctor’s comment on his weight almost identical to Carter’s, which can simply be considered unlucky. However comments that ‘the words "fun" and "run" don’t belong together’ and the line: ‘My favourite machine at the gym is the vending machine’ – which is so old hat you can literally get it on an old hat, does not inspire confidence that he has any original thoughts. 

Rather sweetly Pankaj Pankaj brought his own fan club with him. He’s an older, besuited man whose day job is lecturer in structural mechanics at Edinburgh University, and a bunch of former students came along with home-printed signs that spelled out his name. I suspect he has no serious ambitions to be a comedian, but as a hobbyist clearly happy to be sharing his experiences of being an Indian man long settled in Scotland, he provided a charming end to the night.

Review date: 2 Oct 2025
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Leicester Square Theatre