Adam Flood has won Bath Comedy Festival's New Act of the Year 2022 competition.

The final took place last night (Monday 18th April) at the city's Walcot House venue.

Twelve acts, who had worked their way through the heat stages, competed in the final, with each having eight minutes on stage.

Flood's biography describes his stand-up style as "high energy and off kilter". In 2019 he was named a UTC One To Watch and took part in the BBC New Comedy Award and, in 2020, he won a Panel Prize at the Beat The Frog World Series competition.

At the Bath final, he impressed the judges with jokes about his haircut and his use of an auto-tune device to parody pop songs.

Flood wins a £250 cash prize, guaranteed paid gigs with Bath Comedy and a huge trophy filled with mini eggs.

The judges gave second place to Hubert Mayr, with Freya Mallard and Will Owen jointly coming third.

The other finalists taking part were Alex Kitson, Samantha Day, Tom Hutchinson, Aaron Jay, Jasmine Morton, Sug Wallace, Billy James and Alfie Packham.

Previous finalists of Bath Comedy Festival's competition include Joe Lycett, Rob Beckett, Harriet Kemsley, Larry Dean, Esther Manito, Garrett Millerick and David Eagle. 2011 winner Matt Richardson was in attendance at this year's gig.

Geoff Whiting, who hosted the final, comments: "Having been heavily involved in compering and running the heats for this competition, I was very impressed by the standard of comics that entered, especially the 12 finalists. Performing in front of a warm and supportive crowd, they rose to the occasion and there was some stand out performances from several comics that I truly believe have a very big future in the business!"

Bath Comedy Festival director Nick Steel says: "The finalists this year were of a very high standard, and it was a hard job for the judges to whittle them down to just four winners! We have definitely witnessed some future stars in the making - far from being cancelled, it's great to see comedy being continually reinvented and evolving with the next generation of performers. Rock n roll is not dead, so to speak!"

He went on to praise the new venue at Walcot House, which is soon to become another home for Bath Comedy shows, and thanked the audience for being so supportive of live comedy, which he's always believed to be one of the most important and inclusive art forms, and "something we all need more than ever."