North Essex New Comedian Of the Year

2009 winner Darren Maskell recieves the celebrated trophy and novelty cheque from Tony Cowards.

See panel on the left for information about our 2010 competition.

North Essex New Comedian of The Year will become Colchester New Comedian of The Year in 2010

Watch this space for details

2009's North Essex New Comedian of the year heats and final took place at The Greyhound pub in Wivenhoe.

A hotly contested final resulted in surrealist comic Darren Maskell being crowned this year's NENCOTY comedy king. In second place was talented impressionist Piotr Walszuk. Bronze medal went to Braintree's deadpan Adnan Ahmed.

Judges included local poet, musician and writer Martin Newell, Frances Richards - Wivenhoe's ex lady mayor and journalist Anna Stenning.

Special commendations to the other talented finalists: Catie Wilkins, Dean Tolhurst, Ian Smith, Louisa Theobald. And everyone who took part in the heats.

Thanks to University of Essex Print Centre for their support with this event!

2008 winner Paul Byrne recieves his trophy from our resident MC Tony Cowards.

This competition was held from January to February 2008 at The Bull pub in Colchester.

30 acts took part in three heats, leading to a grand final featuring the following acts:

Jane Hill

Nigel Numas

Richard Rycroft

Ben Van Der Velde

Dan McKee

Andrew Doyle

Dan Allen

Paul Byrne

Plus a stirring set from the fantastic Jade The Folk Singer.

The judges from Grapevine magazine and the Colchester Gazette had a tough time choosing between the acts, but finally our first winner Paul Byrne was crowned for his disturbingly surreal set.

Runners up were Ipswich's Andrew Doyle and writer Jane Hill.

We will be adding details of our 2009 competition very soon. Keep checking this space!