Comedy review: Scottish Comedian of the Year 2011

Scottish Comedian of the Year 2011Pavilion Theatre, Glasgow****

After performing for 13 months, 24-year-old Glaswegian Jamie Dalgleish was a deserving winner of 2011’s Scottish Comedian of the Year contest. Recurring finalist Graham Mackie took second, with Glasgow-based Irishman Pearse James unlucky in third with the night’s most distinctive set. With a couple of exceptions who struggled, the standard of newish acts with a sprinkling of veterans was solid if unspectacular, the bias towards cynical, West-coast observations on Glasgow’s rougher locales painting a grim spectacle for a judging panel comprised of mostly English bookers and club promoters. Rarely can a non-sponsored event have featured quite so many mentions of Gregg’s the bakers.

The assured Dalgleish charmed the crowd immediately with his mockery of bouncers and optimism about life expectancy in his native East End. There’s an appealing edge to his dismissal of alcoholism as an illness and platitudes about saving for a rainy day, but it was his merciless account of an ex’s mispronunciation of a chain of Italian restaurants that was the night’s abiding memory, compere Raymond Mearns even alluding to it in his set while the judges deliberated. Despite mic trouble that he turned to his advantage, Mackie’s couldn’t-give-a-damn persona stood him in fine stead, so notwithstanding a few lines older than time itself, the foul-mouthed teacher was a popular runner-up. James enacted some of his surreal routines better than the material warranted, but had enough flashes of invention and originality to suggest that, like Dalgleish, he could have a bright future in stand-up.