A decade after winning the second ever Birmingham Comedy Festival Breaking Talent Award, Josh Pugh has been confirmed as 2025’s special guest.

The prestigious award show takes place at The Glee Club, Birmingham, on Friday 3 October 2025 and officially opens the long-running festival. Josh will be performing a special closing set at the end of the night after appearances from five of the very best new and emerging comedy acts from the West Midlands: Bab, Abbie Edwards, Abbie Hale, Harry Jenkins and Ryan S Lewis.

Josh is one of the region’s most respected and lauded comedy acts. Winner of the Birmingham Comedy Festival Breaking Talent Award in 2015 - when he was just a year into his stand up career - the Warwickshire comedian went on to scoop English Comedian Of The Year 2016, while his solo show, Sausage, Egg, Josh Pugh Chips And Beans, was nominated for Dave’s Edinburgh Comedy Award 2022.

Known for his frequent viral hit videos, such as ‘Inventing the four cheese pizza’ and ‘P*** up in a brewery’, Josh’s numerous TV appearances include Live At The Apollo, QI, Hypothetical, Unforgivable, Rosie Jones’s Disability Comedy Extravaganza, and Channel 4’s Paralympic Games 2024, as well as sitcoms Sneakerhead and Parker. He’ll be back on TV soon with his own Channel 4 sitcom, Stepping Up, in which he plays hapless Midlands stepdad ‘Josh’.

Says Josh: "Winning the Birmingham Comedy Festival Breaking Talent Award 10 years ago was amazing. Ten years ago? Is that right? Christ!

“Anyway, it's a really brilliant thing to be part of with your peers, who are at the same stage of their careers and on the same local scene as you.

“It's less of a competition and more of a celebration of local talent, but that's easy to say when you've romped to victory in a competition that people are still talking about a decade later.

“I'm really honoured to be asked back to do a set and see the next generation of West Midlands acts.”

The award-winning Birmingham Comedy Festival runs from Friday 3 to Sunday 12 October 2025 and boasts more than 90 performances, including appearances from Babatunde Aléshé, Inside No.9, Henning Wehn and The Comic Strip, as well as dozens of free/ PWYW shows.

Compered by James Cook, and featuring a special appearance from Josh, the Birmingham Comedy Festival Breaking Talent Award takes place at The Glee Club, Birmingham, on Friday 3 October 2025. For tickets and more information, see: bhamcomfest.co.uk