Shots At The Dragon win Musical Comedy Awards 2025
- 1st: Shots At The Dragon
- 2nd: Jack McMinn
- 3rd: Sarah Gaul and Paras Patel
Kanwar Crosse and Sam Hall, who perform as Shots At The Dragon, are the winners of the Musical Comedy Awards 2025.
They triumphed at a live final last night (Saturday 12th April) at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London.
As well as winning the main prize, they took home the Audience Favourite award.
Childhood friends, Crosse and Hall started Shots At The Dragon as an experimental hip hop duo. Their biography explains: "They quickly realised their experiments were too silly to be taken seriously and decided to embrace their mutual affection for comedy. Since Summer 2024, Shots At The Dragon have been creating short and long form musical comedy videos which you can find on their Instagram, TikTok and YouTube."
The Musical Comedy Awards has been the double act's first foray into live performance. Their set for the final involved a meta commentary video on their performance and a setlist that included a song about empathy and mines.
The judges picked keyboard-playing Jack McMinn as runner-up. His set included a song deconstructing musical comedy.
Guitar-based stand-up Paras Patel and keyboard playing Australian Sarah Gaul were jointly awarded third place.
The show also featured a performance from the previously-announced Best Newcomer winner, Roops.
The other finalists who progressed through the heats to earn a spot in the final were Al Nash, Zara Gladman, Abi Sharp, Holly Spillar, Jonathan Oldfield, Joe da Costa and Alex Prescot. Each had seven minutes on stage.
The competition, sponsored by WeGotTickets, is now in its 17th year. This year's final, which was supporting the charity Music Mind Matters, was hosted by Nick Horseman and featured a headline set from Jazz Emu.
The judges were Bruce Dessau (Evening Standard), Hils Jago (Amused Moose), Hollie Ebdon (agent), Lynne Parker (Funny Women), Mark Boosey (British Comedy Guide) and Steve Garland (agent).
MCA promoters Ed Chappel and Tamara Cowan say: "It was an amazing show for us with 12 acts that hadn't been in the final before. Such an incredibly high standard and a huge thank you to our acts for their outstanding performances! Big congratulations to our winners: Shots At The Dragon deservedly won the MCA double with their hilarious set which had the audience in stitches and also received the highest points from our industry judges! Book us in for next year - our headliners are the 2022 Best Newcomers, The Sugarcoated Sisters!"