A clown-therapy show that takes place in the middle of the night. A hymn to British multiculturalism. And a show at risk of imminent interruption by the birth of the performer’s first child. An eye-catching list of nominees has been announced for the 2023 Edinburgh comedy awards, the most prestigious prize in live comedy. In a more open field than ever, when – very unusually – none of the previous year’s nominees returned to the fringe with full shows, the favourite is the Estonian clown Julia Masli with her show ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
The diversity of the shortlist extends beyond Masli, however, to include Lebanese-American comic Janine Harouni, a previous best newcomer nominee, performing her show Man’oushe while heavily pregnant. Also included, Ahir Shah’s fantastic show Ends, about race, Britain and Shah’s grandfather’s migration to the UK in 1964; Two Doors Down star Kieran Hodgson’s crowd-pleasing and -teasing set about moving to Scotland; and former bouncer (and 2022 best newcomer nominee) Emmanuel Sonubi with a show about his crazy-paved employment history. Rackety veteran Phil Ellis, fall-guy Ian Smith with his show Crushing and Ania Magliano with a strong hour about her recovery from, er, a bad haircut make up the eight-strong list.
In a year when the awards were saved from near oblivion when three new sponsors (Sky, DLT Entertainment and the Victoria Wood Foundation) were announced in July, only a month prior to the festival, the awards organiser Nica Burns said, this “international, diverse group of shortlisted comedians come from a huge variety of backgrounds and their work embraces every type of comedy from clowning to pure standup, with many variations along the way. What they all do is make people laugh.” After the victory last year of Australian oddball Sam Campbell, the organisers may wish for a more commercial act to prosper this time around, to maintain the big-hitting reputation of a prize that launched the likes of Frank Skinner, Steve Coogan and Rose Matafeo into the entertainment mainstream.
Also announced on Wednesday afternoon was the shortlist for the best newcomer award, featuring another clown show that has taken Edinburgh by storm, Bill O’Neill’s malfunctioning circus act The Amazing Banana Brothers – the latest in a lineage of hip LA comedies in the tradition of Doctor Brown and his protege Natalie Palamides, both erstwhile Edinburgh award champs. The rookies list includes big debuts from audience-terrorising Manchester comic Dan Tiernan, pretend woke-bashing American act Martin Urbano and the Indian standup Urooj Ashfaq. Louise Young and her namesake, Paddy Young, represent the north of England on the list, with Birmingham-based Lindsey Santoro also featuring.
News of the shortlist kickstarts the final lap of a festival that has felt reborn this year, after two years substantially lost to the pandemic and 2022’s provisional return. Even if last year’s nominees stayed away this summer, high-quality comedy has been easy to come by, with clowns in particular having a strong year – as represented by O’Neill, Masli and the likes of Frankie Thompson in her hit theatre offering with Liv Ello, Body Show. But this remains a fallow period for sketch comedy, with no representation on either shortlist for an art-form that used to – in the form of The League of Gentlemen, The Mighty Boosh, Pappy’s Fun Club and more – regularly vie for the big prizes.
The winners of the award will be announced at a ceremony on Saturday, with £10,000 on offer to the main winner, and £5,000 each to winners of the best newcomer and the Victoria Wood prize (awarded to deserving endeavours that don’t fit the other criteria.) If not for the quality of her nocturnal show alone, fans of neat symmetry will be rooting for a Masli win, to match the victory of her partner and fellow clown Viggo Venn in TV’s Britain’s Got Talent earlier this year. But it’s a strong list: Shah’s show is a powerhouse; Hodgson’s Big in Scotland as densely joke-packed as his previous trio of award-nominated fringe shows. The judging panel have three days to decide – let argument commence!
