Comedy award winner on living his childhood dream

Ryan S Lewis won Birmingham Comedy Festival's breaking talent award in October

At five years old, Ryan S Lewis from Smethwick knew he wanted to make people laugh.

After watching a kids television show and comically singing one of the show's songs to a friend at school, it was their joyful reaction that sparked that passion.

"You know in Christmas songs you get jingle bells?" he said. "That laugh just sounded like jingle bells to me, and I was like 'I want to make people laugh'."

But he did not know there was a name for that job, so he told everyone he wanted to be a clown.

It was not until he was seven years old and he watched I Spy, an action comedy film starring Eddie Murphy, that he learnt what a comedian was, and decided that was the career he wanted.

But after that, he did nothing - his dream took a back seat for about 20 years until he finally stood on a stage to do stand-up comedy in The Hollybush in Cradley Heath.

"I got a good reaction, and I was like 'oh, I think I can do this'."

'All those late nights paid off'

What followed was what he described as a "long, hard grind" - one that led to him being named as winner of Birmingham Comedy Festival's Breaking Talent Award 2025 earlier this month.

"It means a lot to be honest," he said of the achievement.

"All those late nights, doing the open mics, doing the grind, has all paid off."

Judges said he had a commanding presence, energy, and ability to engage the audience.

Now Lewis wants to put the Birmingham and West Midlands comedy scene on the map, and tell stories about his heritage as a descendant of the Windrush generation.

"What I would say to anybody is, if your dream eats you up inside, if it causes you some anxiety, if it makes you uncomfortable, more than likely it is something you should grab with both hands and just push," he told the BBC.

"Half the time, that's the only thing that stops us – our own minds... and once you push and you get that recognition, you will never look back."