The Betsey Trotwood is a lovely little pub near Farringdon station in central London. It’s pretty reasonable given the location, and they serve a mean bowl of chips.
The pub was the venue for one of the 2014 Funny Women Awards heats on Tuesday 20th May, with a few more rounds still to come. Our host for the evening was the wonderfully sparkly Rachel Gleaves, a Funny Women Awards 2013 finalist herself. The audience was already in a warm and supportive mood – there was a lot of love for funny females in that room – and she had us clapping and cheering away like we were all at Wembley.
I’m not going to ruin the surprises from each of these fabulous women, but here’s a taster of what you missed:
Georgia Thorp – If you want croaky Greek old woman accents, disdain for marriage and plaid shirts in your comedy, Georgia won’t let you down. Going first is tough and she took it in her stride.
Samantha Pressdee – This woman is RAUNCHY, she knows her Shakespeare, and I envy her amazing legs. Don’t let the cute bows on her shoes fool you, and for goodness sake don’t look in the bag of props.
Maria, Queen of Flamenco – I almost played a drinking game during Maria’s set, in which I took a shot every time she said “ole!” or some variation thereof. I can’t tell you how glad I am that I didn’t do that.
Lisa Mcmullin – As she took great pains to explain, the hairstyle is not part of the act. With that clarification out of the way, Lisa breezed confidently through her set with an enviably relaxed attitude.
Samantha Baines – I will never watch another Harry Potter film in the same way again. And with Samantha punctuating her gags with strategic exercise, I did feel a bit like I was watching Rosemary Conley do stand-up.
Jayde Adams – Ask her if you can have 300 grams of the Saint Agur and half a cranberry-topped pork pie. I dare you. And when she starts removing layers of clothing, just sit back and watch – I promise you it’s fine.
Katie Bridges – It was great to see a fellow glasses-wearer get so annoyed about it. She also ventured into the often tricky territory of talking about her boyfriend, who I think might have been in the audience squirming awkwardly. That’s love, people.
Beth Friday – Beth rivalled our MC Rachel for sparkliest woman of the night. I don’t think there are many women who can rock up dressed for an evening at Mahiki and start talking convincingly about how they more or less live as a hermit.
For those of you who wish you’d gone and actually been up on stage delivering the gags instead of chuckling away from the audience, it’s not too late to enter the awards! The stand-up category doesn’t close until the 9th of June, and the writing category is open until the end of August so you’ve got tons of time.
Plus, if you’re saving up your best one-liners for next year then you might even see me give it a go. Watch this space!
Kady Potter is 26 (or as one slightly younger friend put it, ‘a quarter of the way to dead’), and works in London as a copywriter. She would be a stand-up comedienne if anyone could tell when she was standing up. You can find her making puns, speaking Japanese, lusting after food and wielding the Misplaced Apostrophe Banhammer on Twitter @koisurukady
Pictured: Host Rachel Gleaves
