Who wouldn't think the fast track to stardom was about to open up just for them?It isn't of course

Who wouldn't think the fast track to stardom was about to open up just for them?It isn't, of course. Even for the winner of SYTYF? there is a long hard slog ahead if the brief acclaim is to be converted into hard-core fame - the kind that gets you beer commercials Last year's winner was Lee Mack He's great He may make it yet. It's playing to clubs that are smaller and less inhabited than your own living-room. It's finding out that death is not painful or cathartic, just humiliating. It's remaining a nobody for a very long time.Then So You Think You're Funny? comes along, smoking a fat cigar, pulling bank rolls out of its pocket and beckoning you into its limousine.

Yes.TOMMY TIERNAN, WINNERWanting to be a stand-up is an old-fashioned, reach-for-the-stars kind of ambition. It looks scary and glamorous, like being a gangster, or a test pilot.And it isn't. He was cracking them up and I was backstage saying, "Oh shit." Once I got on, my hands were a bit shaky and one joke got absolutely nothing. It's like jumping out of an aeroplane, pulling the rip-cord on your parachute and realising that what you actually have on your back is a sack of potatoes When a gag goes well, it's brilliant You feel omnipotent, "Yes, yes, yes. I can do this and I think that girl over there fancies me."I was more nervous going on stage to collect the cheque than I was doing the gig I was trembling I wanted to be cool. Just walk on, smile, wave, take a bow, collect the prize and stroll off. Instead I sprinted on stage, started jumping up and down shouting, "Yahoo." I got very drunk and my entire body was filled with helium and I was floating above the Gilded Balloon saying, "Thank you very much, please kiss me." This morning I feel like a wet teabag But I'm going to have a glass of champagne for breakfast.

Everybody wants to win but nobody wants to make an asshole of themselves We were all backstage last night trying to be casual. "Oh, you know, whatever, I just want to enjoy it." You can't help being sucked into the feeling that this is your big chance and if you don't do well, you'll spend the rest of your life in the backseat of a taxi cab saying, "I coulda had class, I coulda been a contender."I was on last, which was hard, and I was also on after this guy who did brilliantly. It was a deeply disturbing moment and reminded you exactly why talent contests should hang on to their grassroots.So did they think they were funny? We asked two of the contenders of C4's contestCompetitions are tough. And the prize money isn't bad either: pounds 1,000 to pounds 1,500 for winning a new faces contest compares more than favourably with the pounds 3,000 on offer to the winner of comedy's top gong, the Perrier Award.But although the comedy talent contest has turned pro, with organisers requesting videos to weed out the nutters, it was still refreshing to witness, in Monday's Open Mic final, a slavering bald bloke banging together two tins of food while screaming, "And Tony gives it to Mary". Gone are the days when you could turn up for a heat, or even the final, and be more or less guaranteed to spend a cringe-filled hour of joy, contorted in your seat with embarrassment at the death throes of a succession of no-hope jokers. Alas, at Monday's Daily Telegraph Open Mic Award, only three of the 10 finalists failed to impress, and only one of them came close to nudging the cringe factor.