Well, well, well! After sorting through all your amazing entries, multiple listens to each and a satisfying number of laughs, we’ve finally completed the painstaking task of putting together the 80 entrants who’ll be performing in heats across the country in August and September.
This year we had over 600 entriesfrom new comedians across the UK, featuring music, witty observations and surreal sets we’ve still not quite got our heads around yet.
Our first ten comedians will perform at our Potterrow site at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival on the 21st August, with another ten performing the next evening. We’ll then visit Manchester, Cardiff and London for more heats – you can find tickets here.
As well as requesting your presence at the heats, we’ll also be requiring you to pick two wildcards in an online vote at the end of the heats. You’ll be asked to choose your favourite performer from eight runners-up, with the most popular earning a place in the semi-final. You’ll also be able to help crown the winner during our live final on BBC Radio 2 in December.
You can keep up with the latest by following us on Twitter – we’ll be blogging and creating videos on the road so you can watch our comedians in action. We’ll also be broadcasting highlights from the heats on BBC Radio 4 Extra from September.
Although our search for entrants has now ended, this is really only just the beginning. We have a winner in our final 80… we just don’t know who they are yet!
Our team get listening to your entries
If you're not one of our final 80 this year, it doesn't mean that you're not funny or didn't make us laugh. We had so many brilliant entries it was a genuinely difficult task to select a shortlist. (That's why it took us so long!)
We have to finish by saying a massive thank you to everyone who took the time to enter, who spread the word and the give their friend/sibling/offspring [delete as appropriate!] the push needed to bite bullet and enter.
Right, we'd best be off - we've got some comedy shows to put on!
