Birmingham Comedy Festival Breaking Talent Award 2024 nominees
- Dom Bant, Caleb James, Lin Smith, Rich Spalding, Tom Towelling and Gareth Williams have been shortlisted for the Birmingham Comedy Festival Breaking Talent Award
- The final takes place on Thursday 10th October
Six emerging acts from the West Midlands have been shortlisted for the Birmingham Comedy Festival Breaking Talent Award 2024.
The nominees are as follows, with their biographies as supplied by the festival.
Dom Bant
Hailing from Chelmsley Wood, Birmingham, and now residing in Coleshill, Warwickshire, Dom Bant made his stage debut in 2019 after completing a stand-up comedy course. With a style that has been called 'deadpan and self deprecating,' he says: "I mainly talk about what annoys me and my experience of relationships, parenthood [and] being a Beta man in a world of Trump and Farage apologists."
Caleb James
Freelance video editor Caleb James calls Cannock, in Staffordshire, home. He popped his stand-up cherry at the appropriately named Comedy Virgins, in London, in 2021. "I started out gigging in London because post-pandemic gigs in and around Birmingham were hard to find," says the comic who peddles "dark, dirty, observational/ storytelling".
Lin Smith
Lin Smith made her stand-up debut five years ago, at The Firefly's ComedyJAM night, in her home town of Worcester - a night she graduated to overseeing in 2021. Describing herself as a "recovering musical comic" she says her comedy aims to be "offensively fast, lightly fruity, powerfully erratic," and takes inspiration from such distinctive figures as Julia Davis, Emo Philips, Diane Morgan and Reeves & Mortimer.
Rich Spalding
Rich Spalding was born in Kidderminster, Worcestershire, studied at the University of Birmingham, and now resides in Hackney, East London. A copywriter by day, he co-hosts the Our Dads Died podcast (with Tom Gerken). Rich describes his career highlights as "... winning the Panel Prize at the Beat the Frog World Series Final 2022 [in Manchester] and making my Edinburgh Fringe debut at the Pleasance Courtyard this year."
Tom Towelling
Having initially made a name for himself as one half of Birmingham Comedy Festival Breaking Talent Award 2018 nominated double-act Good Kids, Tom Towelling has been increasingly stepping into the limelight as a solo act over the last year, and recently won the Musical Comedy Awards 2024. A resident of Hall Green, Birmingham, Tom is a regular at Moseley's Deep Friend Comedy Club. Citing John Kearns and Mr Bean as key inspirations, he describes his comedy style as "deliciously rich and creamy."
Gareth Williams
Raised in Shropshire, Gareth Williams first got a taste for comedy as a member of Bath Spa University's Comedy Society, The Idle Playthings. Later moving to Brum, he launched "Birmingham's original LGBTQ+ comedy night", Queer As Joke, in 2021. "I just tell stories from the perspective of an overweight, underprepared millennial, with a bit of a saucy flare," he says.
The final will take place at The Glee Club in Birmingham on Thursday 10th October 2024, as part of the Birmingham Comedy Festival. The night, which will also be livestreamed via NextUp Comedy, will be hosted by James Cook and feature a headline set from Sarah Callaghan.
Since debuting a decade ago, the Birmingham Comedy Festival Breaking Talent Award has handed out it's 'Mug Of Victory' trophy to such now established acts as Josh Pugh (2015) and Celya AB (2019), while the nominee list has included Eric Rushton, Lindsey Santoro and Jack Kirwan, aka Gary Powndland. Iraqi/Brummie Hasan Al-Habib is the award's most recent recipient.
A spokesperson for Birmingham Comedy Festival said: "When we first discussed starting this award, we did fleetingly wonder if we might run out of acts. But ten years later, and such a thought seems utterly ridiculous, as the region continues to be a home to so many talented comedians, whose inventiveness, charisma and originality continues to inspire newcomers."
Birmingham Comedy Festival runs from Friday 4th to Sunday 13th October 2024. Details and tickets via bhamcomfest.co.uk