Student Blogs

So i fainted on thursday and bashed my head. Thursday was the day i was gonna go to the cinema so im a little gutted as i now wont go for a while due to dissertation stress etc! Oh well! Anyway, just in case anyone reads this i thought i would let you know the reason for my temporary absence!

Magners Paramount Comedy On Tap is the hottest comedy event on the student calendar, providing top stand-up acts at universities, as well as offering students the chance to try their luck at stand-up with our Funniest Student competition.

The final was once again held at the world famous Comedy Store in London and this year it was Geordie Ric Wharton from Southampton Solent University who claimed the title.

Ric’s set covered a range topics from his own version of Celebrity Big Brother - You've Been Stalked - to some genuinely below the belt gags that had the crowd in stitches.

The panel, which included award-winning comedian Robin Ince, Off The Kerb talent representative Anthony Butler and Paramount Comedy’s Head of New Comedy Kathleen Hutchison, described his performance as ‘faultless’.

Ric’s win makes it two in a row for Southampton Solent, as last year’s winner Hannah George also studies there.

We chatted to our newly crowned winner to see what he made of the whole thing…

So, how do you feel about winning?
It still hasn’t sunk in. It’s really overwhelming. I’ve never so much as won even a raffle in my life!

Did you ever think you may be in with a chance?
That was about my thirtieth gig so I was confident of my material, but it was definitely my best performance yet.

How did you feel about performing in The Comedy Store?
I felt quite at home, it gave me a lot of confidence to be in such a place really. I really enjoyed every moment; I was just staring off into space a lot of the time in amazement. Three weeks ago I was performing in front of thirty people at a Student Union gig and then I’m at The Comedy Store. It was an amazing feeling.

About two coach loads of supporters came up from Southampton, how did you feel about having so many of your mates there?
I much prefer a clean slate with an audience as half of my mates that came along had already heard my set so I would rather have performed to a room full of strangers. But since I’ve won they’ve been fantastic, I think I’d be laying drunk in a ditch somewhere if they hadn’t been there to take me home after the final!

You got heckled by a fellow Geordie during your set, did you find that off putting?
Basically I said that it’s not quite the same in the North East, where I’m from and I got a knee jerk reaction from a fellow Geordie in the crowd out of Newcastle pride I think! But it was all quite tongue-in-cheek on both sides so when the crowd just cheered at how I played up to it I felt fine.

What made you decide to enter Comedy on Tap?
I knew about the competition from Hannah, as she does the same course as me at Solent and I knew she’s won it the year before. She said I should enter it but what happened was I went to another Student Comedy final on the deadline day of Paramount’s competition and to be honest with you after that I just really wanted to do another competition so as soon as I got home I emailed over my YouTube clip from those awards so I could enter the Paramount competition.

How did you feel about competing up against your course mate Paul Longley?
Well, it was great to be able to share that experience with him. I thought Paul was brilliant though, it was only his eighth gig as well, and most of them were just student gigs.

What did you think of our MC Patrick Monahan?
Patrick Monahan was absolutely excellent at getting the crowd into the gig. I think he’s probably one of the best compares I’ve certainly ever been on stage with. He sent me a text after the show to say well done actually.

Have you done many stand up gigs before?
I think I’m up to 31 or 32. I’d done the Celebrity You’ve Been Stalked gag, where I talk about the Chuckle Brothers on a raunchy night out, a few times before the Comedy Store though - after one gig people kept coming up to me in the urinals going “to me, to you!”

How long have you been performing?
Before I got into Solent I was doing this open-mic night in Newcastle called Long Live Comedy. The first time I did it I just I went along because I’d always wanted to try it, although it was also because my brother made a bet with me to do it. For my first gig, it went well but I was on a rocky path with my girlfriend at the time so she was sitting in the crowd giving me evils whilst I was doing my set, which was a bit off putting!

Who’s your biggest comic inspiration?
I’ve seen a couple of good acts in the North-East, with guys that nobody’s ever really heard of. To this day, the funniest set I’ve ever seen, was done by an unknown guy at an open-mic night in Newcastle. And, I really like the headline act Brendan Burns at the final as well; it was the first time I’d seen him and I thought he was hilarious. I think Jack Dee was the first comedian I ever saw on telly. I was in year 4 at school at the time, my older brother brought it home for me to watch and I’ve been influenced by his work ever since.

For the final we had the three judges sitting on the stage next to you like the X Factor. Did that make you nervous?
I thought they were all actually quite nice. And the thing is, on my Solent course we have to perform stand-up in front of the class during our Tuesday lesson and the course leader gives us feedback. It’s quite similar to what the judges were doing on the night, so that made me feel more at home. Robin Ince was on the judging panel and I’m a big fan of his and so I didn’t want to go up on one of the biggest stages of all and for him to say “actually I don’t find you funny”, so that was a bit nerve wracking. I remember when I started the set I started talking about computer games and turned to him and said “look I’m sorry, I’m not sure you’re gonna like this!”

Did nerves bother you up on stage?
Something told my stomach half way through that I should be nervous, I could feel myself cramping up a bit so I had to pace about the stage a bit. But the people I came up with looked after me so much, making sure I ate before the show and stuff because I was nervous and they were all amazing.

You’re studying a Comedy Writing and Performance at Southampton Solent, do you think that’s helped you to develop your stand-up material?
To be honest since coming to Solent, the course lecturer Dr Chris Ritchie really took me under his wing and he sorted me out with a student gig that was held at Jonglers, which before The Comedy Store, I’d say that was my best gig.

How do you come up with your material?
During open-mic nights I do different material each week, so what I did at The Comedy Store was like a condensed version of that really. When I started I used to say what I thought a comedian should say, now I feel like I’m more at home of stage, I’m more myself. I don’t try to hide my accent or anything like that, my material just rolls of my tongue more fluently.

What did you make of the prizes? E.g. your gawdy cup, gigs courtesy of Off The Kerb and the opportunity to develop an idea with Paramount Comedy.
Well the cup’s probably going to rust away as I drank a pint of Newcastle Brown Ale out of it on the train back to Southampton after the final! I don’t think my Mum is going to be too happy when I take it home. Getting gigs courtesy of Off The Kerb has just blown my mind really as to be honest if they book me 365 gigs a year I’d go to them all and I’d be grateful for it.

So, what’s next for you?
Well, that’s a tough one. The highest thing I set myself up to do so far was perform at The Comedy Store, so I don’t know where to go from there really as I still feel really overwhelmed by the whole thing. A comedy agent came up to me on the night and offered me £100 for a showreel. It was only last year I was doing ten-minute gigs for a tenner a pop and I was over the moon at that because it was like a pound a minute!

Do you want to become a regular on the comedy circuit?
I couldn’t stop doing stand-up now. I wouldn’t know what else to think about. I started the course at Solent with the intention of writing comedy scripts but to be honest I feel more at home doing stand-up.

Watch Ric Wharton - the UK's Funniest Student. The clip's from last week's final of the Paramount funniest student competition at the Comedy Store

Well, there’s not much really been happening here at the moment apart from the odd trip to the pub to say goodbye to people. It’s all winding down here which is sad, but it also means that before not too long we’ll be off to New Zealand and then Australia! YAY!Anyway, there’ll be more details soon, we’ll put up more photos now that the weather is better! 

Drugs are undoubtedly one of biggest social problems facing teenagers and young adults in the UK. Mixed messages sent from the government over drugs and in particular cannabis have left people thinking they are able to posses and use illegal substances without threat of prosecution.

I was therefore extremely please to see Greater Manchester Police accompanied by sniffer dogs monitoring Victoria Station when returning home last Friday. I would have been completely unaware of their presence if it wasn’t for the sniffer dog getting excited when someone ahead of me walked past. Two burley police men took the young gentleman aside for questioning.

While living in Manchester over the past four years I have in general felt extremely safe. Even during the series of high profile attacks in Fallowfield in 2006, the police appeared to quickly respond with high visibility tactics and again took a proactive approach, warning unaccompanied women of the dangers and even escorting them home.

Keep up the good work GMP!

I didnt really think i wanted to see this. The trailers didnt really impress me cos they just showed lots of mamoths. However i think this absence of caring made it much better. I really enjoyed it, its a little adventure for spear weilding hunters against mamoth weilding enemies. It was fun, not exactly a work of genius but definatly fun.

3 popcorns

I have decided that i am not a particularly inspired film reviewer. You may have already noticed. So from now on i think i shall say that rather than writing film reviews i will write personal comments. This I think has come from the fact that when it comes down to it what i would really like to say is ‘this was good’ or ‘this was crap!’ without too much other stuff.

The other bolyn girl was good! Or i thought so. True it was historically inaccurate, most noticably in that Henry VIII probably didnt look nearly as good as Eric Bana seeing as he was very fat, but it would not have been nearly as appealing if you put a great big fat man in next to Scarlett and Natalie! It is also true that it probably didnt push itself as hard as it could have into the dirty side of the story due to the desire to be a 12A, however if you just pretend it is a film, designed to entertain, it acheives its goal. Therefore i say it was good, not excellant nor crap.

3 popcorns

The Bank Job is a gritty film with a mostly British cast lead by
Jason Statham. The film is based on a series of true stories creating an intricate and relatively believable story which indeed sounds like something straight out of Hollywood. Of course that is for a good reason, because it is!

Some elements of the film which are ture are that there was a bank robbery on Baker Street in 1971, that Princess Margaret allegedly* had revealing pictures of a sexual nature taken which were concealed under a “D Notice” and that there was a crazy crime boss called Michael X.

It does however takes some leap of the imagination to string all these stories together which unfortunately shows in the film as it swings wildly from the believable to the unbelievable.

I was pleased to see Jason Statham attempting something other than the action fueled acting he is so famous for, however at times he did appear somewhat rigid. Even so he remains one of my favorite actors, in particular for his role in Snatch and the Transporter films. It did make me sit up somewhat when he turned kung-fu master in the final scenes with some typical Stratham-esq action.

Altogether The Bank Job was entertaining, slow in parts and confusing in others but still worth watching!

*not by me - please don’t sue me

This week I started cycling to the station and getting the train to work instead of driving!

I work in Bradford and live in Manchester so commuting is an everyday part of life. When I started working in Bradford, I worked out it was cheaper to travel via car than by train, however I forgot to factor in the cost of servicing and depreciation to my car! So now I pay around about the same price for the train (thanks to inflation of fuel prices), and my car is having a rest in the garage.

Train prices in my opinion are ridiculously high giving people very little incentive to switch from less carbon efficient forms of travel such as driving. If one other person shared the cost of commuting to Bradford by car, the cost would be utterly incomparable to the cost of both traveling by train. Furthermore I think it is disgusting that Alasdair Darling is considering increasing the duty on fuel which will undoubtedly only serve as a tax on low income households.