SEVERAL surprises were in store for the audience at the penultimate night of Ealing Comedy Festival hosted by Seann Walsh last week.

The best act came from Scottish comedian, Danny Bhoy, who was first to get Walpole Park’s big top crowd belly laughing on Thursday July 21.

Laughter levels peaked as he raced through topical issues including Brexit, the Euros and Scottish independence, alongside an (embarrassing) insight into his personal life.

Danny’s jokes had traces of Billy Connolly and Jerry Seinfeld about them, with a dry deadpan delivery that Kevin Bridges is famous for.

Silent comedian, Tape Face, known for his bizarre-looking oven mitts act, was replaced a few days before the show with ‘commitments in America’ — who was not revealed until the night.

The unusual act is currently competing in the final stages of Simon Cowell’s US version of his hit show Britain’s Got Talent and is rumoured to be in strong contention to win the $1million prize.

The absence of Tape Face did not disappoint when a familiar-faced gentle giant from Georgia, USA, appeared instead.

Reginald D. Hunter walked onto the stage to an explosion of cheers as fans welcomed him to Ealing.

Reginald’s deep southern drawl nervously cracked the first controversial joke of the night breaking the ice.

His killer joke was at the expense of Democratic Presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, suggesting her first job as president would be ‘getting rid of that desk in the Oval Office.’

Seann was the final act and one of the headliners for the festival.

Throughout his act, cackles of laughter from pockets of women stood out among a slightly subdued crowd.

However, Seann seemed to enjoy mocking personal situations in his life which ended the night’s laughter on a high. 

The night saw big names and some surprises, but the festival’s future is meeting financial challenges.

Despite being a popular annual event with Ealing Council, cuts in government funding has forced festival organisers to reduce the number of jazz and blues days this year.

Event coordinator, Cara Gibson, of The Event Umbrella, said: “We had to re-think and restructure the festival in terms of budget management.”

When asked about the reduction to the number of jazz and blues days this year Cara remained optimistic.

She said: “This is such a huge part of Ealing culture, we don’t want that to go.

“We want to carry on working on it and hopefully now with a slightly more corporate attitude towards it, it should start to get some money going and hopefully go back to the four of five days of jazz, that would be awesome.”

Cara said that there would likely be a review on how they structure the comedy schedule for next year.

Image courtesy of Claudjah Service, with thanks