Nic Wright

Leicester Mercury Comedian Of The Year winner announced

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Cumbrian comic Tom Little has bagged the 2015 Leicester Mercury Comedian of the Year award, it was announced today.

The 27 year old, who now lives in Salford, has been performing stand-up since July 2013. In 2014 he reached the finals of the BBC Radio New Comedy Award, and was semi-finalist in So You Think You’re Funny in the same year. He also came joint third in the Beat the Frog World Series.

Little said: “It’s such a big deal that these amazing finalists are voted for by the industry. I’m so pleased to be one of them”.

The other finalists were David Jordan, Ingrid Dahle, Jake Lambert, Kiri Pritchard-McLean, Lolly Adefope, Penella Mellor and Stephanie Laing.

Of the eight finalists, six were female acts, making 2015 a historic year in the award’s history.

The award was judged by The Times’ TV and Comedy Critic Alex Hardy, Bruce Dessau, of Evening Standard, Leicester Mercury’s Paul Banks, Manford Comedy Clubs & Ten Feet Tall promoter Peter Vincent, and Steve North, Channel Manager of UKTV’s Dave.

Now in its 21st year, the award is a regular highlight of Dave’s Leicester Comedy Festival, and is unique in that each of the acts are nominated by UK comedy promoters.

Previous recipients of the award include Jason Manford, Johnny Vegas, Seann Walsh, Josh Widdicombe and Romesh Ranganathan.