The trophy is a pigeon, the prize was £150, and the qualifying rule is that you can’t be a professional. That is the Not So New Comedian of the Year, run out of the Museum of Comedy in Bloomsbury. On Friday 29 May, Matt Hollins from Leicester won it after more than two decades of gigging. Chortle’s write-up called it his first prize in that whole stretch. Depending on how you score gong-show wins, that is either harsh or fair.

The eligibility filter is what makes this one worth writing about. Three rules, in order of relevance: over 35, performing for at least five years, and “not making a living from comedy.” Around 100 acts entered the 2026 round, which is a lot of people answering “no” to that third question. Most national comedy comps screen for “new”. The Not So New screens for the opposite.

The rule that bars the people you’ve heard of

The eligibility lines are on the Museum of Comedy’s own competition page, alongside the format rules. Five minutes of original material, character acts and musical acts and sketch groups welcome, over by the time you’ve finished your second drink. Run over five minutes and you’re disqualified. Heats and semi-finals ran through April and the back half of May at the Museum’s basement before the final on the 29th.

That filter does a specific job. It cleanly excludes the BBC New Comedy Awards crowd, the under-30s being fast-tracked into Coventry heats for this year’s televised final. It also excludes most of the bigger Fringe prize circuit, where the Cheez-It-sponsored Joke of the Fringe pays out £1,000 for a single line. What’s left is the working comic who keeps a day job. The competition was originally called Old Comedian of the Year, and the rename has a specific origin. David Hardcastle runs the competition under the artist development banner across the Museum of Comedy and the Leicester Square Theatre. He told John Fleming back in 2019:

“A lot of people refused to enter a competition that had the word ‘Old’ in it.”

Which is a relatable answer. “Old” at 35 is a hard sell to anyone who’s just paid £400 for skin serum and a haircut.

£150, down from £250 in two years

The prize money has been quietly shrinking. Chortle’s reports on the 2024 and 2025 finals both list the winner’s cheque at £250. Siobhan Dodd took it in 2024 with a set built on her family and her work as a British Sign Language interpreter. Sean Patrick took it in 2025, with Fred Ferenczi getting £100 for second and Jim Brown £50 for third. For 2026, British Comedy Guide has Hollins’s prize at £150 and a pigeon-themed trophy. Nobody has explained the drop in the public coverage I can find. The only contact on the Museum’s competition page is an email to dhardcastle@leicestersquaretheatre.com, which is where I’d send the enquiry.

For comic relief on the maths, the Joke of the Fringe pays a grand for one good line in August. Hollins worked five minutes for £150 plus train fare back to Leicester. He’d had to clear heats, semi-finals and a final to get there, which means he’d done his tight five (presumably the same tight five, tightened further each round) on at least three separate nights at the Museum’s Undercroft venue. The hourly rate isn’t generous. The Undercroft is in the basement of St George’s Bloomsbury, off Bloomsbury Way, and it’s small enough that the front of the audience is essentially on the stage.

Twenty years to a national trophy

Hollins has been gigging since the early 2000s and is a regular on the Backyard Comedy Club bill. According to his Backyard bio, his earlier prize wins are all on the gong-show circuit (King Gong at the Comedy Store, Beat the Frog at the Manchester Frog and Bucket twice) plus a Leicester Mercury prize back in 2004. His onstage register is deadpan, his subject matter observational. The Chortle line about “first prize in 20-plus years” is doing a little work on the gongs, then, but as a description of his first significant national title with a trophy that isn’t shaped like a frog, it’s fair.

Lulu Popplewell took the runner-up spot and Tom Redman came third. Chortle lists the rest of the final bill as Sean Anderson, Adam Larter, Alice Frick, Garrie Grubb, Lizzy Lenco, Georgia Thorp, Barry Mathews, Jake Baker, and Cy Henty (performing as Bern). Thirteen acts on the night. Even at five-minute slots that’s the better part of 90 minutes once you factor in changeovers and an MC, which is why finals like this tend to thin out around act eight or nine and a well-paced deadpan five tends to outperform a high-energy six on a tiring crowd.

The 100 entrants you didn’t read about

It is worth noting how little this end of the circuit shows up in coverage. This week’s comedy news cycle is Daniel Kitson booking his first proper tour since 2013, Simon Amstell taking two Fringe nights at the McEwan Hall, Russell Howard opening Aberdeen Comedy Festival on 19 September, and Matt Mathews flying in for four UK arena dates on the back of 15 million Instagram followers. Real stories, every one. Meanwhile around 100 stand-ups in their late 30s, 40s and 50s entered a five-minute knockout in a Bloomsbury basement for the chance to win a pigeon trophy and £150, and that’s also real, just without a publicist behind it.

Forget the prize money for a second. What the Not So New offers is a bill that refuses to call its acts emerging, which is unusual enough to be worth flagging. Fifteen years into the open mic circuit, the “new comedian” framing wears thin, and most of the rest of the industry just doesn’t say so. Hollins has the trophy now, and the pigeon, presumably, is going home to Leicester on the train.