Frog and Bucket to crown World Series champion

The final of Manchester comedy club the Frog and Bucket’s annual Beat the Frog World Series competition is to take place on Monday.

The culmination of the club’s 12th annual World Series will see the winners of the competition’s four heats perform, and the winner decided by audience vote as well a panel of comedy industry judges.

Competing for the World Series crown are Yuriko Kotani, Rob Mulholland, Karl Porter, MC Africa Zulu, Polish Rick, Daniel Soff, Donal Vaughan, Tayo Cousins, and Rahul Kohli.

Running since 2004, previous winners of the competition have included Carl Hutchinson, Vince Atta, Brennan Reece, Tom Goodliffe, Sam Gore, Pete Otway and Penella Mellor; acts that have gone on to work all over the world, perform successful Edinburgh Fringe shows and supported big name acts.

Beat the Frog grew out of the Frog and Bucket’s long running Monday amateur night. Soon after opening in 1994, the club added an amateur night to their weekly, professional, line up. Famous names who passed through the ‘Raw’ night include Peter Kay, Johnny Vegas, Jason Manford and Jack Whitehall. John Bishop not only honed his skills there but performed his first ever gig on a Monday at the Frog.

This year the World Series heats feature a variety of performers including a recent graduate of the Salford University comedy course, an act whose Beat the Frog appearance was their first gig, a comic who recently appeared on BBC Asian Network, a nurse and a comedian from Japan.

Dan Nightingale will compere the final, which takes place Monday 9 November at 8pm.