The second heat of the new Hobgoblin Comedy Award came to Lincoln last night, hosting some of the city’s best comedic talent.
Hosted by professional comedian Tiernan Douieb at the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre (LPAC), competitors showcased various styles of comedy to an attentive crowd of over a hundred people.
Each hoped to make it through to the award’s final, which will take ten of the best acts from across the country to perform at the Leicester Comedy Festival in February.
First to take the stage was University of Lincoln student Josh Matthews, whose loud, cynical reviews of children’s literature and nativity plays was described by Tiernan as “a friendly, light-hearted act to kick off” (albeit rather sarcastically).
Amateur poet Joshua Galvin aimed his set at “the ladies”, although the females in the audience seemed rather unimpressed by his factually accurate rhymes and he ended up expressing his love to the floor.
Lincoln-born Paul Mutagejja discussed his Kenyan heritage, while Sam Chaplin mused over his monumental career as a chilled picker and how to control wayward meat products before joining the poetry fun with his one-stanza wonder, ‘So Alone’.
Following a short interval, Liam Mitchell admitted that he was a frequent visitor of some very weird and specific dating sites, not least ‘Amish Dating’, but also the coeliac-friendly ‘Gluten Free Singles’ and the coulrophilic ‘Clown Passions’.
In what was only his second gig, Jacob Carse revealed he had made the most of the free beer provided by the sponsors backstage. Despite asking for “sympathy laughs”, it seemed like the crowd were genuinely amused by his hair and attempt at a beard, both of which were later confirmed to be real.
Final entrant of the night, Ed Carfrae, is better known at the Zing Cafe Bar for hosting the weekly Zing comedy night on Mondays, but his set – which dealt with the problems of “looking gay” and being black in the least diverse city in England – still entertained the committed audience members who had stayed on late into the night.
Closing the evening was headliner Andrew O’Neill, a professional comedian and former metal singer known not just for his stand-up but also his appearance on panel shows such as Never Mind the Buzzcocks. His incredible musical set sent the crowd home in hysterics and provided the perfect end to the LPAC’s contribution to the Lincoln Comedy Festival.
The final mention, though, has to go to a man known only to the crowd as ‘Alex’, whose front row seat meant he was “picked on” by every act of the night.
More heats will be held over the country over the next two months. All the entrants will find out if they have proceeded to the national level of the competition and are still in with a chance of winning some guaranteed performance slots as well as thousands of pounds in December.
Josh Matthews, aka The Professor of Lincoln University Comedy Society, aka professional wrestling commentator aka the Citizen Kane of Smackdowns, performed a very adequate set on Monday’s Hobgoblin Comedy Competition.
His lanky appearance proved somewhat intimidating to the audience so he sat down to remain eye level with them, bucking the conventions of traditional stand-up comedy, like standing up
And comedy.
His set could be condensed into one key moment, where one audience member had the audacity to LAUGH at the comedy event, causing much confusion for this pioneer of puns. Everybody knew the correct time to laugh was at the obligatory “That should’ve got a bigger laugh” section every 2 minutes.
Unfortunately not everybody got the memo about when and when not to laugh at this jolly carefree event so to punish the unwashed masses that is the audience, Groot De La Rocha plucked one (un)lucky audience member onto the stage so that he could shout encouraging words of wisdom to his fellow competitors.
GO ON, TRY AND BE FUNNIER THAN ME!
At least that’s what I thought he said. My eardrums are still ringing since he emphatically raced outside the door, like a smokebomb escape minus the smokebomb.
He is the unflinching erection of comedy, and I hope he goes on to win the finals and become the next Michael McIntyre. Tenouttaten sweep the Oscars!
[…] remembered Paul’s set from his performance at the Hobgoblin Comedy Award heat. In my review, I gave it half a sentence: “Lincoln-born Paul Mutagejja discussed his Kenyan […]