Interviews: So You Think You're Funny? Winners

"I remember reading the list of former winners and finalists," says Maisie Adam on the Gilded Balloon's So You Think You're Funny?: "It was a Who's Who of all the comedians I'd grown up watching. I applied straight away."

Following the path of comedians such as Dylan Moran, Tommy Tiernan and David O'Doherty – all SYTYF? winners before we knew their names – Adam reached the final in 2017: "exactly six months after my first gig. I thought I was a 'seasoned act' by then. What a tit!'"

Since winning the competition, Adam's success makes it easy to forget the rookie she was to stand-up just five years ago: "To suddenly be on this massive stage, in this huge hall, with a well-known comedian hosting the gig... it's a big step up."

Ivo Graham was less seasoned even than Adam when he entered in 2009. He says: "I'd been doing comedy for approximately five months and was already feeling this attention-seeking university hobby might have run its course." Encouraged by comedy producer Corry Shaw, Graham spent that August doing 15 minute slots each day in a split-bill show and progressing through the SYTYF? competition heats – a summer that turned him "from a chancer into a comic."

For Luca Cupani, the 2015 competition offered him a kind of redemption in Edinburgh. The Italian comic had made a shambles of attempting a Fringe-run the year before, where he thought: "I'll improvise every night a new hour of material, in a second language, without any experience." 

Luca Cupani, photo by Steve Ullathorne

Not that it's easy on the Gilded Balloon stage. Adam describes being a "bag of nerves" and so too was Heidi Regan in 2016. Regan says: "I struggled to get the mic out at the very start and just assumed I'd lost the crowd from that point on." She adds: "The room felt huge at the time, though the audience was friendly so I was able to enjoy myself by halfway. Going back a year later the room suddenly felt so much smaller. But maybe I just got taller?!"

The contrast from the ramshackle nature of early gigs to the grander surrounding of Teviot House may have helped Finlay Christie in 2019: "I was doing lots of open mics in London, sometimes performing to five or six people who were clearly unwell. The Gilded Balloon audience was massive and largely mentally stable. After I walked off stage it felt like I was on a very tiny amount of MDMA."

As ecstatic as Christie felt, he still didn't expect to win. A fellow competitor "had absolutely smashed it. I showered them with praise as soon as they came off and told them they were going to win. The first thing I said after they read my name out was 'Shit, I'm really sorry'. I must have come across like a complete tosser."

Like the comedians that won before them, all agree the competition propelled their comedy careers forward. Ivo Graham says: "It got me an agent, filled my diary with gigs and gave me an accolade of 'youngest ever winner of...' – which has been following me around in various promotional materials ever since; next to a photo of a greying long-adulted man who should surely have something else to bang on about now."

Adam agrees: "It put my name on people's radars – other comedians looking for support acts, producers who wanted to hear ideas, bookers who then gave me gigs."

Regan adds: "The competition also sent me to Montreal, which was mind-blowing and also introduced me to established UK comics, like Joe Lycett and Aisling Bea, who were so supportive and kind that it made a huge difference at that key time in my career."

The recognition that there's a future in comedy is perhaps as important as the industry boost from winning a competition. As Cupani says: "Most of all, it happened when I really needed a sort of recognition. I started doing comedy because I love the idea of being on stage, being myself and connecting with an audience of strangers through humour and laughter."

Where to Find the SYTYF? Winners

Maisie Adam: Buzzed
Gilded Balloon Teviot, 3–29 Aug, 5pm

Finlay Christie: OK Zoomer
Gilded Balloon Teviot, 3–28 Aug (not 17), 6pm

Luca Cupani: Happy Orphan
Just the Tonic at The Caves, 4–28 Aug (not 15), 2:20pm

Ivo Graham: My Future, My Clutter Use
Pleasance Courtyard, 3–28 Aug (not 6), 7:30pm

Heidi Regan Gives Birth Live On Stage Every Night Or Your Money Back
PBH's Free Fringe @ Voodoo Rooms, 6–28 Aug (not 20, 21), 5:55pm