Australian comedian Peter Jones has won the Beat The Frog World Series 2023 new act competition.

The final took place last night (6th November) at Manchester's Frog and Bucket comedy club hosted by former winner Brennan Reece. Jones was presented with a cheque for £250 from club manager Jessica Toomey.

Northern Irish comedian Daniel McCreanor was declared runner-up in a vote by the audience and Qasim Akhtar from Bury took the panel prize.

Beat the Frog is a weekly, gong-style new act night, which grew out of The Frog's original amateur night. At the top of the show three audience members are supplied with red cards, while acts try to impress for a full five minutes. But if all three of those cards are held aloft the act is croaked off the stage. At the end a winner is selected from those who 'beat the frog'. All of those winners throughout the year are then put forward to compete in the World Series every autumn, which has now been running for 20 years. The 10 finalists for the final were plucked from five heats across October.

The final also featured Alex Bertulis-Fernandes, Caryl Burke, Adam Evans, Kevin Finn, Rheanon Lee, Blank Peng and Al Stevenson.