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Some people would call 40 comedians stuck in a dark basement on Elgin Street a rather amusing conundrum. TakeOut Comedy calls it a festival.

The 3rd Annual Hong Kong International Comedy Festival roars into life on Thursday 8, featuring the talents of 30 English-speaking contestants and ten Chinese-speaking hopefuls – including the first Putonghua-speaking comics to grace the fest (four of them, in fact).

American comedienne Kerri Louise – a finalist in reality show Last Comic Standing and guest on numerous primetime TV shows in the US – brings her caustic wit to bear as the headliner for a very international field that boasts competitors from Hong Kong, the Mainland, The Philippines, South Korea, Singapore, the US, and Canada, represented by 14-year-old Connor Savage, all vying for cash prizes worth a total of $20,000 and the title of Hong Kong’s Funniest Person.

To mark the occasion, we followed three Hong Kong comedians of various stripes involved with the festival: reigning champion Vivek Mahbubani, first-timer Pete Grella, and one of the few female competitors, Matina Leung.

Read our profiles:

The rookie: Pete Grella

The leng-mui: Matina Leung

The breakout: Vivek Mahbubani