We are thrilled to announce our first four finalists for the 2025 WeGotTickets MCA, taking place on April 12th at the Bloomsbury theatre. Book yourself in for the 17th annual celebration of the UK’s best up and coming musical comedy acts!
HOLLY SPILLAR
Holly Spillar takes to the stage armed with nothing but a little red loop pedal and a DREAM. ‘Ethereal and enthralling’ (LAMOnaise) in equal measures, Holly’s debut show was on of the ten best-reviewed comedy shows of the 2023Edinburgh Fringe. Let her transport you to her hauntingly ludicrous world.
★★★★★”Otherworldly…the love child of Kate Bush and Bo Burnham” – North West End
★★★★”A riveting performer” – Chortle
★★★★★”The vocal chords of Mitski and the wildness of Kate Bush” – West End Best Friend
photo credit – @Justoffthesix
JONATHAN OLDFIELD
Jonathan Oldfield was a BBC New Comedy Award Finalist 2024 and second place winner in the Leicester Square Theatre Sketch Off 2024. He co-created and stars in BBC Radio 4 series ‘Time of the Week’ – alongside Sian Clifford – which was recently named Best Radio Sketch Show at the British Comedy Guide Awards 2024. The series has also been nominated for a Chortle Award and a BBC Audio Drama Award, with series 2 airing autumn 2025.
ALEX PRESCOT
Alex is a musical comic who mainly improvises off crowd work. He was the Clap Back To Reality Winner 2023/24, a previous Chichester New Act & Kingston New Act Finalist and was shortlisted for Chortle Hotshots 2025.
★★★★★ ‘An incredibly talented performer’ – Broadway World
★★★★★ ‘Plenty of humour, plenty of heart’ – LondonTheatre1
‘The comedy equivalent of sunshine’ – Pepper & Salt
Vinny Shiu is a London-based stand-up comedian in his 20s who combines comedy songs with stories and jokes to highlight his unique upbringing: growing up in the West as part of an East Asian family. His act includes observational humor about cultural differences between East and West, the challenges of growing up with traditional Asian parents, and the identity crisis that comes with looking different from his peers.Winner of Southampton Comedian of the Year 2023. Selected for Leicester Comedy Festival Circuit Breakers 2024. Finalist in British Comedian of the Year 2024. 2nd Place in Bath Comedy Festival New Act Competition 2024. Finalist in The Bristol Comedy Competition 2025.
On Saturday 15th we will have our second semi-final and then we will soon find out which other finalists we have! Tickets are selling fast via Bloomsbury theatre and http://www.wegottickets.com/musicalcomedyawards.
Bill Bailey announced today on Instagram and X that he is the Official Patron of the Musical Comedy Awards!
I set up the MCA back in 2008 in order to support, discover and celebrate the UK’s best up and coming musical comedians. Over the years we have had the pleasure of hosting some amazing acts such as Rachel Parris, Abandoman, Bo Burnham and our headliner for this year’s final, the unstoppable Jazz Emu. Bill Bailey was one of the main sources of inspiration for setting up the competition and we are over the moon that he is now our Official Patron! A very proud moment.
After a hilarious week of watching and rewatching all the entries, MCA founders Ed and Tamara have selected their favourite acts to progress to the heats. Due to the extraordinarily high standard of quality and large number of entries, we decided to increase our number of acts competing from 40 to 48. We also had to make some very tough decisions, sometimes choosing to give unknown acts a chance over acts that we have had the pleasure of hosting before. There are also a few acts who obviously possess strong comedic talent and are already making waves/kicking ass but are not really music-based comedians compared to other acts entering. So sorry that we could not squeeze you in! If you are not on the list below, we thank you so much for entering and are sorry that we couldn’t involve you this time around. We invite you to contact Ed at ed@musicalcomedy.co.uk and we can offer you two free tickets to one of the first-round heats on Jan 11th, 25th, Feb 8th or 22nd.
If you are through, firstly, congratulations! We can’t wait to have you perform at the 2025 MCA! We will be in touch very soon via email regarding dates!
Here is our list of acts competing in the 2025 WeGotTickets MCA (in random order and apologies if we have accidentally missed out desired stage name):
Holly Spillar
Joe Da Costa
Margaret Saunderson
Ada Player
Christian Dart
Sophie Banister
Nerine Skinner
Matt Box
Baron Fortitude
Rich McCulloch
Laurie Stevens
EM The Master
The Really Useless Group
Sarah Gaul
Shaun Sonnier
Roops
Juliette Pochin
Jonathan Oldfield
Su Mi
Marc Salmon
Shots at the Dragon
Michael McKenzie
Nayonica Ghosh
Bob Roberts
No Worries If Not
Abi Sharp
Astro Wild
Binkie & Maud
Paras Patel
Katie Hand
Will & Noah
Carl Carzana
Fever Peach
Jonny Brace
Jack McMinn
Sophie Walmsley
Jonathan Rippon
Al Nash
Rachel O’ Connor
Vinny Shui
Alex Prescot
Anna Hale
Eoghan Collins
Madeleine Southey
Kirk Fontaine
Zara Gladman
The Boys from Fudge
Ch’ Lu
Tickets are already selling well for the live shows, grab yourself a Phoenix Pass to see all the Phoenix shows at a massively reduced price: www.wegottickets.com/musicalcomedyawards.
Thrilled to announce that the amazing Jazz Emu will headline the 2025 WeGotTickets MCA Final at the Bloomsbury Theatre on April 12th! Book tickets at www.wegottickets.com/musicalcomedyawards
Jazz Emu is an unpretentious pseudo-comedomusicologist from the UK, who writes glistening up-tempo pop for the emotionally stunted. His music has racked up millions of streams, been featured on the official Spotify ‘Fresh Finds’ playlist and played on BBCRadio 1 Breakfast with Greg James. In 2023 he won two Chortle Awards, in the social Social Media and Best Variety Act categories.
The Telegraph’s 26th Funniest Comedian of the 21st Century
“I think I may have just found my new favourite comedian” The Times *****
“Improbable, clever and very funny.” **** The Guardian
This year I got to meet my hero – the godfather of musical comedy and legend that is Bill Bailey! He was in Vienna on tour and took some time out to meet me before his show. This was a huge honour for me as he was one of the main sources of inspiration for me to set up an independent platform to celebrate the genre that is musical comedy back in 2008. For the last few years, Bill has been kind enough to give the final a plug on Twitter, helping us to raise the profile of our grassroots competition. Thank you Bill, you’re the best!
We are thrilled to announce that we have a date booked at the Bloomsbury Theatre for our 2025 final – the 2025 WeGotTickets Musical Comedy Awards Grand Final will be held on April 12th. Headliner is yet to be announced but the show will be hosted by our resident MCA MC, Nick Horseman. This year we have a number of options with different price categories – if you like what we do and want to help us increase our performance fees for our finalists, please consider booking one of the higher price category tickets.
Results are in for the 2024 WeGotTickets MCA Final! On a fantastic evening of musical comedy in a near-capacity crowd our 12 finalists, Best Newcomers The Queens of Cups and headliners Fjord delivered brilliant performances. Here are the results:
Audience Favourite – Anna Hale
3rd place – Jim Midge
2nd place – Anna Hale
1st place – Tom Towelling
Congratulations to all of our acts on a sensational evening!
For more pictures of the final courtesy of Edward Moore, click on this link.
Snap one of the very last tickets for £10! The Bloomsbury is fit to bursting but we have space for a few last friends! If you book via the Bloomsbury page, click through on the booking page and where it says Savings type in ‘Alumni’, the tickets will be reduced from £15 to £10. You don’t need to have been MCA alumni, don’t worry! But for a laugh you could invent yourself a stage name and say you were in the 1972 MCA but the act was quite niche! If you have already booked, please help us sell the last seats by mentioning on social media that you are coming tonight and invite friends to join you. Thanks for your support!
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