The British Comedian of the Year contest is always an exciting event and it’s a privilege that one of the heats is held in Northampton, courtesy of those nice people at The Comedy Crate. This year in the hallowed chambers of the Cheyne Walk Club, nine hopefuls girded their loins with the prospect of being one of two acts chosen by the audience to progress to the next round.

Introduced by the upbeat and ebullient Ian Hayes, the nine acts were broken into chunks of three, with an interval between acts three and four, and between six and seven. After the final act had performed there was an online vote (oooh) and everyone could choose their two favourites.

First off was Sam Coade, who hit the ground running with some excellent routines and some quite off-beat and daring material. It’s impressive how he can carry a silence without concern – something many comedians rarely risk trying – and it worked well to build an understanding of his material. I loved the ambulance driver routine, and his throwaway icebreaker with the audience member on stage was audaciously hilarious.

Rob Coleman followed; we’d seen him once before at the Leicester Comedy Festival in 2018, and his material is still very much in the same vein – using his older looks, grumpy disposition and mad professor hair as a vehicle for convincing us he’s a sex symbol. It’s the comedy of irony, and you either like it or you don’t.

Before the first interval came Benny Shakes; and I’m sure that’s not his real surname. An imposing stage presence, he uses the fact that he has cerebral palsy to excellent comic effect, with an effective delivery, strong punchlines and some very nice callbacks. Very likeable and funny, he brought the first section of the night to a very happy conclusion.

Act number four was Dudley’s own Danny Clives, an unassuming, self-effacing stage presence and someone who uses a “one of life’s losers” persona, which is always risky but Danny nails it, with excellent timing and some clever material. He went down very well with the audience.

Next was Ryan Kenny, with probably the most surreal act of the night. Comic, poet and an element of clown thrown in, his set is very well crafted and executed, and very original, where he basically performs his material twice because he wasn’t happy with it the first time. There’s a lot of talent here; in my opinion, he just needs to make it funnier somehow. But it’s very inventive and entertaining, nonetheless.

Sarah Johnson came next, with some delightfully ribald material and some very funny observations about family life. I felt that she never quite hit her stride, but her description of menopausal symptoms and side effects gave rise to probably the best line of the night.

Our final cluster started with Norwegian Henning Nilsen, with some good material on what it’s like to be a Scandi abroad, why Norway is better than Sweden, and what would have happened if the Vikings had won. He has a solid delivery and confident style, and I think in time he will become a force to be reckoned with.

Our penultimate act, and someone we’ve seen a couple of times, was Peter Brush, another exponent of the “life loser” persona, but with expert, controlled delivery, and material that always ends with a powerful and very funny punchline. Perhaps his stories take a little too long to get to those punchlines, but they’re always worth the wait.

And finishing us off, so to speak, was Rik Goodman, who cuts a rather mysterious and aloof figure on stage, and who quietly builds his material up over the course of the act. Very nicely and subtly self-deprecating, and with very confident delivery, his content did seem rather fixated on penis size, which I think is something most of us can only take so far. Rather like with Mr Coleman earlier, this is something that either works for you or doesn’t.

Then came the voting! An easy to operate app simply asked for the audience’s top two acts – you didn’t have to nominate them in first or second place. And the results came through very quickly. In third place was Benny Shakes, and there was a tie for first place between Sam Coade and Danny Clives. Personally, I only voted for one of those three, but I feel it’s a very fair result; and good luck to Sam and Danny when they go on to fight again in the later stages of the competition!