Kai Samra is the winner of this year's Birmingham Comedy Festival Breaking Talent Award.
The comic picked up his prize at the Glee Club on Friday night.
The Handsworth-born comedian, whose family later moved to Warwick, has been performing stand-up for just 18 months, but impressed the judging panel with is confident and relaxed delivery, and exploration of such topics as the difficulties of tackling gun and knife crime, class and race, family, and the challenges of finding suitable attire for fancy dress parties.
“It means a lot to me,” said Kai. The only Birmingham-born comic on the bill, he added: “The other competitors were really amazing and it was nice to be nominated and represent Birmingham.”
As a former member of Warwickshire’s indie hopefully Paris Pickpockets, Kai looked set to make his name in music. But despite signing to The Arctic Monkeys’ management company and supporting The Libertines, he has since turned his attention to writing and performing comedy.
Describing his style of stand-up, he said: “It’s observational, political. I try to do stuff that other people don’t, to take a fresh perspective on subjects like race, politics.”
Recently moving to Kilburn, London, Kai is developing several writing and interview-based projects, including his own sitcom, The 27 Club - a reference to a long list of stars who all died tragically at the age of 27, including Amy Winehouse, Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain.
“I wrote it before I started stand-up,” explained Kai, who is also 27 years-old. “We’re going to do a pilot ourselves and try and sell it to a production company.”
Samra faced stiff competition from four other West Midland acts: Staffordshire’s Eric Rushton, who parodied PM Teresa May’s Conservative Party Conference disaster with a cough and a P45; the dark and unexpected Rob Kemp from Wednesbury; Alex Black, who treated audiences to a music skit on social media based around the greatest hits of The Police; and Gemma Layton, aka Black Country cabaret singer/ stalker Beverley Vegas.
A collaboration between the award-winning festival and The Glee Club, and sponsored by Edinburgh Gin, the Birmingham Comedy Festival Breaking Talent Award aims to recognise and support emerging comedic talent from the city and wider West Midlands.
For full Festival listings and more information click here: bhamcomfest.co.uk
