Comedy: Russell Kane: Gaping Flaws | Pippa Evans and Other Lonely People | Mike Wozniak

The winners of tomorrow's if.comedy awards for Best Comedy Show and Newcomer are going places. We review three contenders and also reveal what we've said about the other nominees

RUSSELL KANE: GAPING FLAWS
****
PLEASANCE COURTYARD (VENUE 33)

WITH his unapologetic show title and unabashed swagger, Russell Kane walks the line between chippy working-class oik and preachy liberal intellectual, and his show is brutally effective in conveying self-deprecation and imperfection as the defining British characteristics. Passionate and relentlessly punchy in his delivery, Kane only pauses sporadically to splay his legs in tribute to the poor, old and feeble of Albion, more often than not in recreating a ride on his grandmother's stairlift.

Measuring the British national mentality against the optimism of America may sound hackneyed, but Kane – the face of the Five US TV channel – has the bewildered responses of audiences across the Pond to support him, allied to a restlessly enquiring mind that rejects easy judgments and actively seeks exceptions to his theories.

He refuses to condemn the US obsession with the body beautiful, and although he takes a hard line towards lads' magazines, he acknowledges that at a base level he's not oblivious to their exposed flesh. Besides, he's not just championing decrepitude and failure but criticising those who can't empathise with weakness, exemplified by the ongoing love-hate relationship he enjoys with his bigoted father.

Accomplished as Kane is at making you view the familiar anew, it's his analysis of his own relationships that grounds this show and gives it impact – the image of his father only crying at the passing of his mother or his favourite curry house, or Kane inviting other comics round simply to hear his working-class, maternal grandmother swear.

Mocking other comics' Powerpoint presentations, Kane employs his girlfriend Sadie as a live alternative in poses that frequently undermine his right- on credentials, yet reinforce his status as a flawed human being. He knows this show is essentially critic-proof, as anything wrong with it only makes it more perfect.

• Until 25 August. Today 8pm

JAY RICHARDSON

PIPPA EVANS AND OTHER LONELY PEOPLE
****
PLEASANCE COURTYARD (VENUE 33)

AGED 26, Pippa Evans has been doing comedy for three years, although it was only in March that she gave up her job with a charity, organising holidays for elderly people, to go full-time. Her show displays a searing talent as comic writer, actor and versatile singer.

The audience are given name-labels, cast as a meeting of a self-help group for lonely people, hosted by Granye, who greets them and ushers them to seats. For this character, Evans plays an uptight former Kiwi beauty queen who came to study at the "University of Oxford, London". She's all 1950s lips and teeth with sharp little intakes of breath.

A second lonely character is a sad, semi-retarded cat lady, Amangela, who asks audience members: "Did you ever be lonely?" Then Evans reforms her face and voice for the angry middle-class housewife, in a "my favourite dogs" apron, singing "I may seem shallow, I live in Harrow", in perfect pitch and accent.

I found the off-stage voice of a suicidal poet, or someone else with a handgun, a little jarring, but where average stand-ups might persuade their audiences to find them funny, Evans script is just funny full stop – particularly the little acid-tongued pay-off lines.

It is wicked and dark, with few gimmicks. She can make "hey" or "thank you" funny with timing and a look, and bravely enters the back of the audience in character as a man who blunders into the session. The if.comedy award panel has rightly nominated her for its newcomers' award, but her character act compares to past winners of the main award, such as Laura Solon and Will Adamsdale.

• Until 24 August. Today 4:45pm

TIM CORNWELL

MIKE WOZNIAK
**
MEDINA & NEGOCIANTS (VENUE 205)

I HAVE a lot to thank the if.comeddies team for. Last August I gave Fringe debutant Jon Richardson a solid four-star review for his awfully titled show Spatula Pad, and signed off by promising to eat my keyboard if he didn't make the Best Newcomer shortlist. Fortunately he made the cut (although he didn't win) and an awkward conversation with The Scotsman's IT department was averted.

Comedians have good nights and bad nights, but based on the performance I saw earlier this week, there's no way I would have tipped 2008 Best Newcomer nominee Mike Wozniak for similar success.

He's got some very good material about the time he irons his penis, but that doesn't arrive until 35 minutes into his set. Before that, there's hardly a laugh to be had – just some ho-hum stuff about his dad's shitting and shouting research (Wozniak Sr is a Polish amateur scientist, apparently) and a mildly amusing tale of inter-species "bumming".

Wozniak tackles some fairly leftfield topics, but somehow, in spite of the obscurity of his subject matter, he still conspires to telegraph many of his punchlines. The most effective weapon in his comedy arsenal is the way he repeats the same word or phrase over and over again, building to a crescendo of rage or indignation. It works once or twice, but nobody wants to watch a guy repeating himself on stage for an hour.

If Wozniak wins this year's Best Newcomer Award, I'll eat my keyboard.

• Until 24 August. Today 10pm

ROGER COX

OUR VERDICT ON THE IF.COMEDY HOPEFULS

MAIN PRIZE

• David O'Doherty, The Stand

What we said: "His style might appear wayward, but O'Doherty's set is finely tuned and great value."

• Kristen Schaal and Kurt Braunohler, Assembly @ George Street

What we said: "One of the funniest 50 minutes you're likely to see this year."

• Rhod Gilbert, Pleasance Courtyard

What we said: "Rhod Gilbert has finally surpassed all expectations."

• Russell Kane, Pleasance Courtyard

What we said: See above

NEWCOMER

• Mike Wozniak, Medina and Negociants

What we said: See above

• Pippa Evans, Pleasance Courtyard

What we said: See above

• Sarah Millican, Pleasance Courtyard

What we said: "It requires exceptional skill to be a cruel yet likeable comedian. And Sarah Millican nails the contradiction beautifully."