THE Edinburgh Comedy Awards have announced the shortlist for this year’s Best Comedy Show.
The nominees include Scottish comedian Larry Dean, who has picked up his second nomination for the top prize.
However, one comedian is questioning whether the awards serve their purpose of highlighting the best comedy when the nominations are so concentrated around a single venue.
This year over 50% of the nominees for Best Comedy Show perform at the Monkey Barrel.
Since opening in 2017 the Monkey Barrel has become known as one of Edinburgh’s top comedy clubs, welcoming stars such as Nish Kumar and Josie Long through its doors.
But Kev Sutherland – who performs as the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre – said the likelihood of a majority of the best acts coming from one venue was “unlikely”.
Speaking to The National he said: “It just seems gravitationally and statistically unlikely that all of the best acts could possibly all be at one venue. I think it makes you question what the comedy awards are for.
“Because if the Comedy Awards' intention is to put a spotlight on the comedy that takes place at the Edinburgh Fringe in August then it would serve it to have a wider spread.”
Sutherland previously criticised the Comedy Awards in 2011, when 9 out of 11 nominees were all performing at The Pleasance.
He urged the organisers of the awards to rethink how they decide the nominees.
He said:“I would say to the Comedy Awards: ‘Okay I know you liked a lot of these people who you’ve seen before in London and some of them are your mates but should we not look again and be thinking we need to do justice to the Free Fringe and the Free Festival and to do justice to local acts'.
“If the purpose is just to find the next line-up for Taskmaster then fair enough carry on with it. If the remit is just to give awards to people who come out of Oxford and Cambridge, have done the London circuit, and come up here for a fortnight to entertain their friends and make the decision on who’s going to win the awards before they even leave London then fine.
“But I don’t think that should be the point of the awards.”
However, comedian Freddy Quinne said that with all the problems for comedians at this year’s Fringe, who gets nominated for the awards wasn’t something people should be concerned about.
“Historically nominations have been dominated by Pleasance Courtyard,” he said. “So, this is a break from the norm and if anything what this shows is not that the Monkey Barrel is dominating nominations, it’s that the people who are in charge of making the big decisions in Edinburgh are venturing away from the big four venues, which is only a good thing.
“And I would say that of all the things that are wrong with the Fringe this year – and my God there is a lot wrong with it – to focus on this idea that 50% of nominations are from one venue isn’t a priority. Is that the squeaky wheel that needs the grease?
“Not only do I not subscribe to this idea that it’s a bad thing, I don’t even think it’s a thing worth worrying about.”
He added that Monkey Barrel’s success could be put down to the venue’s treatment of comedians: “They offer comedians a really fair deal and I would argue that the reasons these particular good, talented comics are skewing away from the traditional venues is because they are a rip-off.”
Indeed, Quinne added that rather than worrying about winning awards most comedians were concerned with how expensive it has become to perform at the festival.
“It’s at the point now where the cost has become so ridiculous and so out of hand that it’s pricing out generations of performers.
“There’s already plenty of talk about people setting up their own Fringes in opposition to this and unless it’s sorted out the Fringe is going to cause itself irrevocable damage.”
A spokesperson for the 40th Dave’s Edinburgh Comedy Awards said: “This year's panelists viewed almost 600 eligible shows and the nominees announced yesterday were chosen entirely on merit.”
