20 years of Funny Women! Not too shabby, is it? This year’s Funny Women Awards Final, took place on Thursday evening at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London and I’m still reeling!
Kate Cheka was crowned the winner of this year’s Stage Award, thanks to both a confident set filled with surprising gags and to her ability to put a clever, unexpected twist on newsworthy topics. Her description of the billionaire submarine disaster was my favourite joke of the night. Kate is a multi-talented comic, with plenty up her sleeve and a lot more to share.
Hosted by Jo Brand, the night was yet more evidence of the seemingly never-ending stream of comedy talent running through the UK at the moment.
Blank Peng kicked things off brilliantly, with a sparky and unique take on the Barbie movie, as well as the pressures from her parents and as some enthusiastically performed jokes about censorship and the Chinese government, which went down a treat.
Charlie Vero-Martin, aka ‘Persephone Gemstone’, CEO of The Magic of Yoni helped an audience member begin her manifestation journey with the kind of confidence that only comes from owning your own line of unsanctioned health drinks. Her blonde-wigged, wellness cult leader persona hit particular highs with the reveal of her podcast guests and assertions that she’s got a yurt for your every ailment.
In wonderfully downbeat contrast, Hannah Platt, the ‘disclaimer friend’ who needs to be explained before you meet them, extolled the virtues of being a quiet person and lamented the one minor flaw in the fanbase she’s gathered as a self-loathing comic — later, deservedly placing in the top three!
Scottish musical comedian Nikola McMurtrie started with a song about taking a 23andMe test and finding out she is 100% from the UK, though, much to her dad’s embarrassment, more English than Scottish. Then, in a really strong argument for more people doing interpretive dance in comedy shows, she shared one of the weirdest posts on creepy incel reddit.
Rachel Barker — possessor of the most unexpected celebrity lookalike ever — outlined the confrontation that every British teenager ever-so-slightly rebelling in the 00s had to face when drug-taking: that life isn’t Skins. Her descriptions of being on ecstasy and coming up just at the wrong moment were a delight.
Sascha LO’s posh private school persona brought true main character energy to the stage, reminding the audience that ‘head girls are humans too’, and she’s not interested in selling crystal meth because you’d never catch her working in retail! You can imagine she might find herself at one of Persephone Gemstone’s “wellness” retreats 15 years down the line.
Arriving on stage in a shark’s head, singing the jaws theme tune is the perfect introduction to Su Mi — even better that this is the whole bit, never mentioned again — before she launched first into her signature roaringly funny stand-up and then a song about what you shouldn’t say to an Asian woman.
Fantastic storytelling followed from Tal Davies, whose tales of adopting a rescue stick insect called Twiggy went down particularly well, not to mention what happened when she had to make funeral arrangements after the pet’s devastating death.
Wrapping up the evening was second runner-up Victoria Olsina, Argentine-born comic and winner of LGBTQ+ Comedian of the Year who has found that the only good thing about the UK is the M&S cheese twists (they are good). She’s disdainful about the general attractiveness of the English and rightly places the blame on Brexit for draining the UK of hot people AND decent tomatoes.
Interspersed throughout, we watched the three Comedy Shorts final films from Claire Parry (a Whiplash spoof about squeaky chairs), Holly Hall (a woman who heroically adds 100 cups of coffee to her diet), and the winning sketch by Amy Spinks and Lauren Soley, a bitesize and perfectly pitched scene titled ‘Where’s Your Bag’ about the dangers of leaving your items unattended in the pub.
The Content Creator Award went to Serena Terry, with Soph Galustian and Nerine Skinner as runners up, while Chloe Partridge scooped up the Writing Award for her script Welcome to The Avalon. After a frankly brilliant speech about the particular need for protecting women’s safety in comedy, Amy Annette, last year’s winner of the Industry Award, handed over the mantle to Sarah Bowles, who set up the ISH Edinburgh Comedy Awards in response to the potential cancellation of the main Comedy Awards. (You can read more about all of the winners and nominees here).
While we know the success stories of earlier winners such as London Hughes, Katherine Ryan and Zoe Lyons, it’s important to remember how quickly and thoroughly the stars have risen for recent champions. Lorna Rose Treen returned to headline the Bloomsbury Theatre stage a year on from taking home not one but two of the night’s accolades. After a sold-out Edinburgh run and winning the Best Joke award, she’s now sold out and extended her run at the Soho Theatre as well. I wrote last year that I hoped Lorna would be met with similar acclaim as the previous winner Lara Ricote did in the year after she took home the Stage Award — thankfully, that was the case, and they’re both getting their flowers.
Now, let’s see everyone get behind Kate Cheka with the same enthusiasm. She deserves it! What a wonderful 20 year celebration! 20 more?
If you missed the final, you can catch it on BBC Radio 4 this Sunday evening (1st October) at 7.15pm.
