Paramount Comedy Funniest Student 2008

Ric Wharton has won the Paramount Comedy Funniest Student 2008. The final took place at London's Comedy Store on 10 March and you can see a clip of his winning performance on this blog.



Thursday 13 December 2007

Google Group

We've also got a new Google Group up and running.

Wednesday 12 December 2007

Facebook Group

Our little Facebook group 'Student Comedians' has gathered a grand total of 18 members since its launch two and a half days ago. One of the comedians we're featuring there is Nathan Caton. I'll be adding some clips to this site in a minute ... but I've also found an interview with him on the Paramount Comedy website.

Running Joke

Got a funny third line to add to this? Let us know!

A dog barked (Conway Wigg) ... so loud that his tail turned blue (anonymous) ...

Tuesday 11 December 2007

Link Building

Just entered Student Comedian on BritBlog. They asked for a link back so here it is ... British Blog Directory

So Funny!

The Sun's best joke of the week is .........

"Apple Computer announced today that it has developed a computer chip that can store and play music in women's breast implants.

The iBreast will cost £499 to £599.

This is considered to be a major breakthrough because women are always complaining about men staring at their breasts and not listening to them."

You can find more Sun hilarity here.

If you can do better, let us know.

Monday 10 December 2007

The Monday Interview

Today we speak to Roddy McInnes from Edinburgh’s Comedy & That.

1) Give me a little background about you

I'm 20, from the West End of Glasgow. I'm the son of two artists and I subsequently decided to fuck their hopes of producing the next Picasso by studying Neuroscience at Edinburgh. I'm 5ft10, 13 stone and to my great shame I have grade 8 in flute. I'm also in charge of the Edinburgh student group Comedy & That.

2) How are things going at Comedy & That this year? New students that have impressed at your shows and why? Plans for 2008?

Comedy & That has been going really well this year. We've been doing our show every three weeks in our regular place, The Canons Gait, on the royal mile to a large regular following. We had a really good fringe run there with our show 'Headlights' at Peter Buckley Hill's Free Fringe and we've just come back from University College Cork's comedy festival where we robbed them of their silverware.

We're a strange group of folk in terms of comedy in that if something is to be performed at a show, either a sketch or a 7-minute stand up act, it has to be completely new to the show and we hardly ever repeat things outside of the Fringe and competitions. This is always the thing that catches out prospective stand ups but there have been quite a few new students that have impressed us all this year. At the start we had an influx of folk wanting to do stand up, quite a few of which dropped off as time continued but those who managed to hang on, like Jon Scarth and Calumn Hamilton, have been coming on leaps and bounds. Our most impressive new stand up would have to be Mike Walsh. He's only done about 10 gigs but the quantity and quality of the material he produces as well as his natural ability to use his God given Irish craic makes me think him to be the bastard son of Ed Byrne.

The majority of what we do is sketch comedy and we've picked up some talented new folk in that respect as well. We acquired Mickey Anderson at the start of the year from Southampton (he's already listed on your website) who has been writing a lot of new funny stuff on his own and in conjunction with our head writer Ben Verth. Mickey has also been doing stand up about as long as I have and is a great addition in that respect as well. Charlie Byles has also impressed us all as a new actor in the group.

Our plans for 2008 include a trip to the Cat's Laugh Festival in Kilkenny, another Fringe show with PBH in August and hosting the second leg of the recent UCC festival sometime next September or October.

3) Tell us your best joke?

I'm one of these arsehole comedians that doesn't actually tell jokes and tends to defensively say "I'm more observational sort of stuff" but my favourite joke of all time is one that my girlfriend's four year old sister always tells me whenever I see her;

Eilidh: What's green and invisible?

Me: What?

Eilidh: (holds up an empty hand) THIS CABBAGE!

At which point she haemorrages laughing.

4) What made you pluck up the courage to expose the public to your jokes?

Naievity.

I saw someone die on their arse at the Stand in Glasgow and thought that it couldn't be THAT hard. I've had some (thankfully rare) horrific moments doing stand up and being involved in comedy and some hugely rewarding buzzes from when it all goes to plan. I didn't know what I was letting myself in for right at the start but now that I've got a fair grasp of it I understand that it's a bipolar abusive lover that you can't give up.

5) Who are your comic heroes and why?

Peter Cook, Spike Milligan, the Pythons, Chris Morris. A Scottish comic called Joe Heenan because he's the first headliner I ever saw and has always remained my favourite working comic. He's just a fiery ball of comedy energy and a really nice guy!

I'd also class Jim Hobbit as one of my comedy anti-heroes because he reminds me that you are never too old or too mentally ill to do stand up.

6) Are you looking forward to spending the best years of your life playing dodgy pubs, striving for the big break, or do you have a plan B?

If was given an absolute certainty of being able to feed myself by being involved in comedy and doing stand up I'd happily work 365 days a year at it. Alternatively I'll stay at uni for another 6 years, become a brain surgeon and buy my own comedy club.