Breaking Talent Award 2026 Shortlist Named in Birmingham

The prize is a mug. An actual one, the Mug Of Victory, handed over on stage at the Glee Club in the Arcadian. Five West Midlands acts are now in the running for it: Tarik Badwan, Andy Bucks, Naph, Nina Semple and Eden Voss.

Birmingham Comedy Festival named that shortlist on 19 August. None of those five filled in an entry form, because there isn’t one. Grapevine Birmingham’s write-up spells the mechanism out. Acts “have been nominated by representatives from across the local comedy scene, including performers and promoters, based on performances over the last year.” The award launched in 2014 and has worked that way since.

Nobody applies for this one

So the qualifying rounds were every function room, back bar and Tuesday-night new material slot across the West Midlands between last summer and this one, watched by people who didn’t announce they were watching. There’s no form to fill in for next year and no closing date to miss. Somebody either wrote your name down after a gig you’ve since forgotten, or they didn’t, and nobody is going to tell you which gig it was.

The five are, by the descriptions in Grapevine’s piece and Chortle’s, not people who gave up the day job. Andy Bucks researches astrophysics at the University of Warwick and does half of a duo called Low Effort Sketches. Naph works as a quality assurance supervisor and an arena steward, and runs her own nights under the HaHaLal Comedy banner. Nina Semple coordinates radio production and is putting together a first solo show. Tarik Badwan performs as a character called Rik Goodman. He told the festival he’s “definitely on the alternative spectrum. And just generally on the spectrum.” Bucks says a friend called his style “acid nerd”, which is the kind of description you keep.

Eden Voss, based in Solihull, gave the answer that stuck with me, quoted in both Grapevine Birmingham and Beyond the Joke:

I love making people laugh and being diagnosed late in life with ADHD and Autism I wanted to help destigmatise neurodiversity by showing another side of it. I think of it as hiding broccoli in the mashed potatoes.

Naph’s own summary is four words long – “deadpan, dark, one liners, observational” – which is also, roughly, what a promoter’s booking note looks like. Nobody has told me whether the Mug Of Victory is dishwasher safe, which is the thing I’d want confirmed before putting tea in it.

When is the Breaking Talent Award 2026 final?

It’s on Friday 2 October 2026 at the Glee Club in the Arcadian, Birmingham (the car park under there is the one you regret at chucking-out time). It opens the festival rather than closing it: Birmingham Comedy Festival runs from Friday 2 to Sunday 11 October. Tickets are listed at £12.75, with concessions at £10.25, plus a £2.75 booking fee. James Cook comperes. The special guest is still down as “To Be Announced”, and so is the judging panel.

That booking fee is worth a second look. It’s £2.75 on a £12.75 face value, 21.6 per cent, and 26.8 per cent if you’re the person buying the concession. I’ve moaned about worse. It’s still a strange thing to explain to a punter at the door who’s holding a tenner and change and assumed that would cover it.

The festival itself is doing its 25th anniversary this year, having been established in 2001. Grapevine describes it as the UK’s second longest running comedy festival, with over 100 performances across the ten days. The official site lists Daniel Sloss, Jason Byrne, Paul Foot, Laura Smyth, Shazia Mirza and Neil Delamere among the names. Beyond the Joke’s version of the headliner list adds Stevie Martin and Olga Koch. A festival spokesperson, quoted in Grapevine, said Birmingham and the wider West Midlands “continues to be a genuine hotbed for live comedy talent”. That, they added, is “very much reflected in this year’s award shortlist.”

What a mug is worth once you’re holding it

No cash figure is attached to the Breaking Talent Award anywhere I can find. The festival’s own page for the show doesn’t mention one. Set that against the rest of this summer’s award season and it looks stingy on paper. The ISH Edinburgh Comedy Awards pot reached £16,000.01 this year, with £1,000 of it going to a tech op. NextUp’s Fringe prize is a 204cm trophy and £500 – taller than almost anyone who could win it, and a nightmare on the train home – and the Chortle Student Comedy Award hands over £1,000 to someone who did have to enter.

What Birmingham has instead is a list of names that kept going. Grapevine’s roll call of previous recipients reads: “Josh Pugh (2015; Live At The Apollo, Stepping Up, Mitchell & Webb), Celya AB (2019; Saturday Night Live UK), Hasan Al-Habib (2023; BBC Two’s Pilgrimage), and Tom Towelling (2024; Channel 4 Sean Lock Comedy Award Winner 2025).” Ryan S Lewis took it in 2025. Two of those credits have since become harder to get hold of, mind. The BBC axed Live at the Apollo with one series still to tape. SNL UK’s second series returns on 12 September with a cast that isn’t infinitely expandable.

Who was in the room in 2024

The panel is the actual prize, and you can see it plainly in the 2024 final. Grapevine listed that year’s judges as “The Glee Club’s founder Mark Tughan, live comedy enthusiast Richard Wilford from BBCWM, comedy agent Hannah Martin (Parkas Comedy), Birmingham Comedy Festival Breaking Talent Award 2023 winner Hasan Al-Habib, and a representative from the festival.” A club owner, a broadcaster, an agent and last year’s winner. All sat in the same room for one night, watching five acts do about fifteen minutes each, which at a competition final is roughly ten minutes of material and five of adrenaline. No cheque involved, just four diaries lining up on a Thursday in October.

Tom Towelling won that one on Thursday 10 October 2024, presented with the mug by Chortle’s Steve Bennett and compere James Cook. Afterwards he said: “I feel ecstatic! It’s been really great to see everyone else tonight, and to see the Birmingham comedy scene really thriving. I’m really grateful for the award, I’m so chuffed.” Dom Bant, per Grapevine, “was praised for his confidence and strength of material and Commended by Judges.”

Which leaves the 2026 five with a Friday in October, a compere who’s done this before, and a special guest nobody’s naming yet. Plus the knowledge that the only way any of them got here was by being good on nights when they had no idea it counted. The rest of award season this summer is louder than a mug. Sponsorship deals, longlists, the Comedians’ Choice Awards paying their winner in rehearsal time. I’d still rather have the mug and Hannah Martin’s phone number.

Sources

About River Leanox

River Leanox edits Open Comedy's newsroom. Coverage runs across stand-up's full ecosystem: comics on the rise, club owners booking the rooms, festivals, specials, and the working-comic economics behind the laughs. Tips, corrections, and counter-arguments welcome at river@opencomedy.com.

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Birmingham’s Breaking Talent Award 2026 pays the winner in a mug