Review of the talent hunt final

Now in its third year, the Crack Comedy Club in South West London crowned Mark Moloney as winner of its Smok’d new comedian of the year competition on Sunday night.

A winning mix of the deadpan and the silly, he offered a sombre assessment of the Vengaboys and Aqua, with distinctive, offbeat writing. The frivolity of the subject matter also stands in pleasing contrast to his hangdog demeanour, making himself out to be one of life’s losers, not least because he feels burdened by his baldness. With a strong rate of quirky gags, he was a favourite with the audience as well as the judges (of whom I was one).

The evening started with George Leeson, a perfectly decent act if not a very memorable one, making jokes at his own expense for looking like an AI rendition of a typical Tommy Robinson supporter and about the Scottish drinking stereotype. A gag about the Queen’s death was a bit too convoluted, and he never quite had the crowd on board while affecting a nostalgia for asbestos. Even though it’s an enticingly odd subject, the writing felt a little rote.

Arie David ​follows a fine tradition of comedians who mask their jet-black sense of humour behind a sweet, butter-wouldn’t-melt manner. While jokes about paedophiles and abortion abound on the open-mic circuit, she approached them from a distinctive angle, and closed them with well-crafted punchlines, not just shock for shock’s sake.

For all that David piled on the charm, Alkesandra Ivanova exaggerated the bleak, blunt harshness that defines the Russian archetype. ‘We are a cheerful nation,’ she sneers unconvincingly. Her jokes, suitably direct, are hit-and-miss but there are some great ones among them. And as she writes the weaker ones out of her act as she journeys through stand-up, it’ll be the unflinchingly unsentimental attitude that sets her apart.

On the other hand Ily Hamdia was friendliness personified. He had the most uncomplicatedly appealing stage presence of the night, chatty and gregarious while in control of his material. His upbringing in the West Country as part of an Arabic family is an obvious source of gags, while his Moroccan dad provides plenty of grist for the comedy mill too. Hamdia isn’t the most sophisticated of writers, but his cheery manner gives solid material an extra boost.

Mikio Kobayashi seemed a lot less certain about what sort of comedian he is, again drawing on a multicultural upbringing as a Japanese kid being educated in an American school but mixing that with punchlines that involve saying inappropriate things without much motive behind them. He has a couple of strong gags, but is still inconsistent in persona and quality.

Rohan Ashar’s autism makes him obsessive about trains, the subject that takes the lion’s share of his short set. But the joke that he goes into granular detail about a topic the room does not care for is one-note, while the overwhelming amount of information he conveys to represent that fixation slows the set down considerably, which is definitely a design flaw.

Auz makes quite the entrance, dressed in ten-gallon hat and suit that’s apparently been made from a mirrorball. But his choice of opener went against him, delivering bad AI-written jokes to demonstrate how poor the technology is at comedy. This had a great tag, but we’d lost some confidence in him by then. And the comedy song about vasectomy that comprised the second half of his set was unexceptional, reinforcing the notion that music can always prop up weak comedy.

Rosie Wood is a beta-woman, an uneasy mass of nervous, uncertain energy, so shy you feel for her on stage. But that vulnerability draws the audience in to the gently offbeat story about being a reluctant, lazy barista that epitomises the archetype of Gen Z’s non-existent work ethic. She hasn’t got enough gags yet but her presence is intriguing.

Samuel Day is a gloriously cheesy act, leaning into the stupidity of the endeavour like a younger, less pun-obsessed Tim Vine. It’s quite refreshing in a circuit full of comics baring their souls to have someone basing their set on quirky versions of Can I Kick It? or Shrek’s All Star. Gotta love someone beatboxing the names of vegetables, haven’t you?

Bronya Kleman comes on to a classy cabaret soundtrack and quickly proves herself to have strong singing voice. But comedy-wise, she lacks focus, moving from the tunes to talking about her Moldovan parents, AI, her anxiety and how weird Santa Baby is as a song (we know!),  without saying much about any of them, nor hitting quick punchlines and moving on. Her set feels just too much like an unprepared chat, not helped by a lot of ‘like’ filler words in her speech pattern.

But it’s testament to the rest of the line-up that she was the only act who felt as if she was completely raw, with the others ranging from gig-ready to ‘needs polish’.

Review date: 12 May 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett