The nominations have been announced for the first Dave’s Edinburgh Comedy awards in three years – and they include a notorious tabloid “love rat”, an act who quit comedy mid-pandemic to stack supermarket shelves, and a transgender woman with the buzziest comedy on the fringe. The so-called “Oscars of comedy” have been in cold storage since 2019, but are revived with a 10-strong shortlist which also features, in a rare departure from convention, a show that’s already been a smash hit elsewhere in the UK – Liz Kingsman’s extraordinary spoof on Fleabag-style “messy woman” cliches, One-Woman Show.
Nominations have also been announced for the best newcomer award, a list which includes 23-year-old Leo Reich (whose electrifying set Literally Who Cares?! would have justified a place on the main list), the Irish-Italian act Vittorio Angelone and New Jersey’s Emily Wilson, with a winning show about her appearance, aged 15, on The X Factor. At least until the winners are announced on Saturday, this year’s happiest comic will surely be Hull native Amy Gledhill, who unusually features on both shortlists – with her solo show on the newcomer roster, and as one-half of the sketch duo The Delightful Sausage, who are nominated, for the second time, for the main award.
The favourite for that gong (comedy’s most prestigious bauble, whose previous winners include Steve Coogan, Hannah Gadsby and Starstruck star Rose Matafeo) may be transgender comic Jordan Gray, the first ever solo trans nominee, whose show Is It a Bird? has been tearing it up late each night in a portable building on George Square. Gray’s sitcom pilot Transaction has already been picked up for a series by ITV.
Brighton’s Seann Walsh is nominated, for the first time since 2013, with Is Dead. Happy Now?, which recounts the mental health fallout from his well-publicised off-screen kiss with Strictly Come Dancing co-star Katya Jones. (As Walsh recalls in his show: “the entire country fucking hated me!”)
Kingsman’s offering, a huge Soho theatre hit last year, is a surprise inclusion on the list – at least to those who thought its colossal success (it was the runaway comedy event of 2021) might rule it out. But it’s a fantastic show. Also in the running, Colin Hoult’s farewell to his gushing thespian alter ego Anna Mann, oddball Australian act Sam Campbell, and Lauren Pattison – with a set recounting her experiences during the pandemic, when she took on supermarket work to survive the loss of her standup income.
The excellent Alfie Brown (son of the Dead Ringers impressionist Jan Ravens) is nominated for his fine sociopolitical show Sensitive Man, and Coventry-based Josh Pugh, who after “four fringes, never had a good one, keep turning up” (as he says in his show), now has a positive Edinburgh experience to savour. The cheerful Glasgow standup Larry Dean receives a second nomination (the first was in 2018) for his show Fudnut.
The shortlist for both awards was flagged for its global and regional diversity, with acts included from the US, Australia and the length and breadth of the UK. There are, however, only two performers of colour included, both on the newcomer list: Emmanuel Sonubi and the Netherlands-based Mexican-American Lara Ricote. A less significant but still conspicuous omission is any clown-comedy act, at a festival that featured strong offerings by performers (Julia Masli, Sami Abu Wardeh, Frankie Thompson) making bold new work in that tradition. The award winners are revealed at a gala event on Saturday and will receive £10,000. The announcement will bring to an end the longest ever reign as Edinburgh comedy award champ, that of 2019 winner Jordan Brookes, who has rarely missed an opportunity to boast about his three-year unbroken supremacy. The winner of the best newcomer award – last time out, the fantastic Catherine Cohen – will receive £5,000.
