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The Edinburgh Comedy Awards (formerly the Perrier Comedy Awards, and also briefly known by other names for sponsorship reasons) are presented to the comedy shows deemed to have been the best at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland. Established in 1981, they are the most prestigious comedy prize in the United Kingdom. The awards have been directed and produced by Nica Burns since 1984.

Format

The main prize, which was for many years the only prize, and is now known as The Donald and Eleanor Taffner Best Comedy Show, is awarded "for the funniest, most outstanding, up-and-coming comic / comedy show / act" at the Fringe. The winner receives a cash prize of £10,000.

The DLT Entertainment Best Newcomer Award category was introduced in 1992 for Harry Hill, and is given to the best "performer or act who is performing their first full-length show (50 minutes or more)". The prize is £5,000. Newcomers are eligible for the Best Comedy Show Award, but no act is allowed to appear on both shortlists in the same year.

A further prize, the Panel Prize, was inaugurated in 2006. All shows are eligible, and the award may not be awarded at all, if the panel so choose. This happened in 2017, when for the first time there were joint winners of the main prize. Previously, in 2008, it had been awarded to "every comedian on the Fringe". Like Best Newcomer, the Panel Prize winner receives a cash prize of £5,000.

History

The original award was created by Perrier in 1981 as a way of supporting young talent. Prior to this, there had been no award recognition for comedy shows on the Fringe. The Scotsman had introduced Fringe Firsts in 1973 for theatre. However, revues, then the dominant type of comedy at the Fringe, were excluded. The first Perrier in fact advertised itself as for the "most outstanding revue", thus overlooking stand-up, which was beginning to emerge as a force due to the influence of the alternative comedy scene.

The inaugural award and £1,000 prize was presented to the Cambridge Footlights, a cast that included Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson, Hugh Laurie and Tony Slattery. Their show, entitled The Cellar Tapes played at St Mary Street Hall and was promoted in the programme with the line, "one of the strongest casts for several years, has already toured in southern England with great success." The award was presented by Rowan Atkinson, who had performed with the Oxford Revue in 1976.

The later success of these initial winners would boost the profile of the awards. However, former Oxbridge revue members had always been able to find success in light entertainment, so the effect of the award on their careers may be exaggerated. Nonetheless, the 1981 Award retains symbolic power for new comedians wanting to find fame at the Fringe.

Many other award winners and nominees have gone on to forge successful careers in comedy and the media industry including Lee Evans, Milton Jones, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace creators Richard Ayoade and Matt Holness, double act Alexander Armstrong and Ben Miller, QI panellist Alan Davies and Mock the Week panellist Chris Addison. Australian Comedian Brendon Burns has said that he is "arguably the least successful winner" of the award.

A stand-up first won the award in 1987. Sean Hughes was the youngest winner of the award, at the age of 24 in 1990.

A Best Newcomer Award was added in 1992, won by Harry Hill, and in 2006 the inaugural Panel Prize was won by Mark Watson.

The panel prize was awarded to 'all performers' in 2008, and the £4,000 prize money was put behind their bar at the end of August party.

2013 was the first year that all three awards went to shows in independent venues outside the so-called 'big four'. John Kearns (PBH) won Best Newcomer, Bridget Christie (The Stand) won Best Show and Adrienne Truscott (Heroes @ Bob's Bookshop) won the panel prize.

In 2014, John Kearns became the first comedian to win Best Newcomer and Best Comedy Show in consecutive years. In the same year, James Meehan was nominated for the Best Newcomer Award with Gein's Family Giftshop, while winning the panel prize with Funz and Gamez.

In 2017, for the first time, two awards were given for Best Show (John Robins and Hannah Gadsby). No panel prize was awarded in 2017.

In 2018, Rose Matafeo became the first non-white comedian to win Best Comedy Show for a solo show, and the first New Zealander to win the award. Only four other female solo stand-up comedians had won the award before her: Jenny Eclair (1995), Laura Solon (2005), Bridget Christie (2013), and Hannah Gadsby (2017).

In 2022, Amy Gledhill was nominated for best newcomer as a solo act, and best show as part of The Delightful Sausage. She was the first person to be nominated for involvement in two shows in the same year since Dan Antopolski in 2000. Jordan Gray became the first solo transgender act to be nominated for the main prize, while Sam Campbell was the first winner of the main prize to do a shorter run.

Sponsorship

From their inception in 1981 until 2005 the awards were sponsored by mineral water brand Perrier, during which time they were known as the Perrier Comedy Awards. Sponsorship then passed to the Scottish-based bank Intelligent Finance and for 2006, the first year of their involvement, the awards were known as the if.comeddies, changing to the if.comedy awards for 2007 and 2008.

In March 2009 Intelligent Finance announced it would not be renewing its sponsorship deal. The 2009 awards were known as the Edinburgh Comedy Award, sponsored by AbsoluteRadio.co.uk. From 2010 until 2015 the awards were sponsored by Foster's Lager.

From 2016 the awards have been sponsored by lastminute.com until 2019 when Dave began to sponsor the awards.

For 2023, each award currently has a separate sponsor, being sponsored by Sky TV, DLT Entertainment and The Victoria Wood Foundation, respectively.

2024 saw DLT Entertainment expand its sponsorship to include both the DLT Entertainment Newcomer Award as well as The Don and Eleanor Taffner Best Comedy Show.

In order to avoid confusion due to the frequency of name changes, past winners are now often said to have won "the Eddie", a popular colloquial term for the award, rather than referring to a specific year's sponsor.

Controversy

Nestlé

In 1995, Perrier was bought by Nestlé, the subject of a long-running boycott based on alleged violations of the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes, leading to calls to boycott or to eliminate the awards taken up by some Fringe venues and performers, including former winners Emma Thompson, Steve Coogan, Stewart Lee and Rob Newman, led a campaign of protest against the award, beginning in 2001, called Baby Milk Action.

The Nestlé boycott also led to the alternative Tap Water Awards which ran from 2001 to 2006, and aimed to promote access to safe supplies of drinking water and sanitation in developing countries; these awards were suspended for 2007 due to "having beaten Nestlé". Multiple winners were chosen each year, including established comedians like Stewart Lee and Robert Newman, and, in the award's final year, promoter Peter Buckley Hill for his Free Fringe initiative.

Inclusivity

The 2002 awards were criticised because no female acts were shortlisted, the second consecutive year in which that was the case. In 2009, they were again criticised for all the nominees being male, as well as all being white, English and all performing at the same venue, The Pleasance.

See also

• List of Edinburgh Comedy Award winners
• Joke Of The Fringe

Notes

1. Cavendish, Dominic (24 August 2005). "Edinburgh reports: time to stand up for the Perrier". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 4 June 2009.
2. Lee, Veronica (3 June 2009). "Can Nica Burns save the comedy awards formerly known as Perrier?". Guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 4 June 2009.
3. Nica Burns. "The Birth of the Comedy Awards: Nica Burns Looks Back". Archived from the original on 9 May 2008. Retrieved 5 May 2008.
4. ^ "Eligibility Rules – Edinburgh Comed". Comedyawards.co.uk. Archived from the original on 7 December 2010. Retrieved 25 February 2017.
5. ^ Guide, British Comedy (25 July 2024). "Edinburgh Comedy Awards 2024 judging panel revealed". British Comedy Guide. Retrieved 25 August 2024.
6. "Edinburgh Comedy Awards 2015: The nominees in full". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 August 2015.
7. ^ Venables, Ben (6 June 2017). "How Comedy Captured the Edinburgh Fringe: Part 2". The Skinny. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
8. "Past winners of the Perrier Comedy Award". edfringe.com. 1 May 2009. Archived from the original on 14 April 2005. Retrieved 5 June 2009.
9. Venables, Ben (22 July 2017). "The Edinburgh Fringe, or The Great Big Comedy Takeover". Fest. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
10. Searle, Maddy (11 July 2017). "Artistic anarchy: 70 years of Edinburgh's Fringe Festival". The Independent. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
11. Venables, Ben (6 June 2017). "How Comedy Captured the Edinburgh Fringe: Part 4". The Skinny. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
12. ^ Logan, Brian (25 August 2018). "Edinburgh award champ Rose Matafeo's Horndog is a comedy smash". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 20 October 2019.
13. "Rose Matafeo wins Best Comedy Show at Edinburgh comedy festival". Stuff. 25 August 2018. Retrieved 20 October 2019.
14. "Comedy Awards nominees, Rhys Nicholson, Sam Campbell - Mark Muldoon's Fringe Diary". Comedy.co.uk. 25 August 2022.
15. "Perrier Ends Edinburgh Comedy Tie". BBC News. 14 June 2006. Retrieved 5 May 2008.
16. "Intelligent Sponsor for the Oscars of Comedy" (PDF). Press release. if.com. 14 June 2006. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 September 2009. Retrieved 5 May 2008.
17. Andy McSmith (21 March 2009). "Edinburgh comedy prize loses its sponsor". The Independent. Retrieved 18 May 2009.
18. "No ifs..." chortle.co.uk. Retrieved 5 June 2009.
19. "Foster's Edinburgh Comedy Awards" Retrieved 13 August 2010
20. "Edinburgh Comedy Awards bag new sponsor". Giggle Beats. Retrieved 17 January 2017.
21. correspondent, Mark Brown Arts (11 July 2019). "TV channel Dave is new Edinburgh comedy awards sponsor". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 4 October 2019. {{cite news}}: |last= has generic name (help)
22. Logan, Brian (7 July 2023). "The Edinburgh comedy awards have been saved. But are they a fringe benefit?". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 17 July 2023.
23. Hello. "Comic has all answers". The Scarborough News. Retrieved 25 February 2017.
24. Shuttleworth, Ian. "Edinburgh Fringe Awards". Financial Times. Retrieved 8 September 2018.
25. "Live Stand-Up Comedy | HIDEAWAY – London's premier live music and comedy club". Hideawaylive.co.uk. Retrieved 25 February 2017.
26. "Boycott Perrier: Newman Calls for Corporate Protest". Chortle: The UK Comedy Guide. 24 July 2001. Retrieved 5 May 2009.
27. Imogen Tilden (22 August 2001). "Perrier Judges Name the Cream of Edinburgh's Comedy". guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 5 May 2008.
28. "Nestlé Pulls Plug on Perrier Award". Press Release. babymilkaction.org. 14 June 2006. Archived from the original on 10 June 2008. Retrieved 5 May 2008.
29. "Baby Milk Action". Retrieved 5 May 2008.
30. "Tap Water Awards: Having beaten Nestlé, we're having a rest". Archived from the original on 12 June 2007. Retrieved 25 March 2011.
31. Arika Akbar (23 November 2007). "Saunders Bemoans Absence of Female Standup Comedians". The Independent. independent.co.uk (Arts & Entertainment). Retrieved 5 May 2008.
32. "Comedy Judges 'myopic' for Pleasance picks". The Scotsman. Retrieved 28 August 2009.

External links

• Official site

• Edinburgh Festival Fringe awards
• British comedy and humour awards
• Scottish awards
• 1981 establishments in Scotland
• Awards established in 1981
• Scottish comedy
• Edinburgh Festival Fringe
• Culture in Edinburgh