And then there were seven. After almost a month of relentless laughter, 563 eligible shows have been whittled down to the final septet, with the winner of this year’s Edinburgh Comedy Award and the £10,000 prize being announced on Saturday (August 24).
So, who is going to follow in the footsteps of Frank Skinner, Steve Coogan and Baby Reindeer phenomenon Richard Gadd? It is certainly a diverse list. Now in its 42nd year, men are in a minority for the first time, and there are also two contenders from Australia.
In strictly alphabetical order, here’s our take on all of the contenders.
Amy Gledhill
Amy Gledhill has already had a nomination for Best Show as half of double act The Delightful Sausage in 2022. And her solo show Make Me Look Fit on the Poster is a true banger, exploring issues of body image through the medium of laugh-out-loud, bold humour.
Gledhill might appear supremely confident, but offstage still has insecurities, though this doesn’t stop her singing the praises of whipping her clothes off and walking around her home naked. The only problem is unexpected visitors. On the surface, the show concerns a series of comic misadventures, but there’s a subtext about empowerment and agency which gives it considerable heft at the end. All this, plus tips on how to get extra portions at your local Toby Carvery.
Catherine Bohart
Irish comedian Catherine Bohart is 36, and has a lot on her mind. She is worried about getting old, and doesn’t know whether to freeze her eggs or her forehead. She also feels the need to explain why she once carried a dead squirrel on a bus. She has already received glowing reviews for Again, With Feelings when it toured the UK, so its inclusion is no surprise.
The subject matter – hitting your thirties, settling down, having children as a queer couple – is not the most earth-shaking news, but Bohart is an effervescent talker, finding new takes on old trope. She is a born storyteller.
Chris Cantrill
Chris Cantrill is the other half of The Delightful Sausage with Amy Gledhill and directed her show, but is also included on the list in his own right with Easily Swayed. It hinges upon another familiar topic: reaching early middle age and having regrets about moving to the country. Can anything new be said about the shock of moving from the city to the middle of nowhere?
In Cantrill’s case the answer is definitely yes. He has a distinctly quirky sense of humour as well as a fondness for medieval capes. Like Gledhill’s outing, this is an honest show that goes deeper than you might initially think, tackling male depression with a such a lightness of touch you may be too busy laughing at the time, and might only realise later.
Josh Glanc
Australia has produced two of the oddest winners of the Edinburgh Comedy Award in recent years, Sam Simmons and Sam Campbell. Could Josh Glanc join that exclusive eccentrics' club? He certainly has a similarly loopy sensibility. In Family Man he plays jaunty, infectious tunes on a plinky plonk keyboard, monkeys around in the audience inviting them to sing along, and majors in mayhem. It is difficult to believe that this madcap moustachioed joker in a cropped t-shirt was once a litigation lawyer in Melbourne. Verdict? Deliciously unhinged.
Natalie Palamides
America’s Natalie Palamides has created a work of knockabout beauty entitled WEER, in which she plays both halves of a romcom relationship simultaneously - dress on one side, lumberjack shirt on the other. It is a trick popularised by Tommy Cooper, but goes back way beyond. But Palamides is no mere slapstick performer sending up everything from Romeo and Juliet to Richard Curtis. There is an intensity here that, at times, takes your breath away. Oh, and it also boasts one of the funniest sex scenes you will ever see onstage.
Some absolutely adore this show. For me, for all of its artistic strengths, it felt more like a piece of theatre, and does not quite fit into the Comedy Award template. It was also slightly longer than the traditional 60-minute slot. But then if it is good enough to be nominated maybe it is good enough to win.
Reuben Kaye
Reuben Kaye is the second shortlisted Australian and should be familiar to Londoners having frequently performed down south. In Edinburgh the comedian hosts the outrageous late night Kaye Hole variety show, but Kaye has received this nod for The Don and Eleanor Taffner Best Comedy Show Award for solo show Live and Intimidating. There certainly isn’t anyone with more star power than Kaye, who would tower over everybody even without the vertiginous heels.
Kaye drips star quality and could not be further from the conventional idea of your shabby T-shirted club comic. In this high energy barbed, bitchy and emotional show Kaye sings, tells jokes and rips into homophobia in Oz, where a harmless joke mentioning Jesus had Christians up in arms trying to get the performer cancelled. This is cabaret rather than stand-up, but boy, does Kaye leave a scorch mark.
Sarah Keyworth
And last but definitely no means least is Sarah Keyworth. I saw My Eyes Are Up Here on my second day in Edinburgh three weeks ago and I still don’t think I’ve seen a show to match it in terms of sheer wall-to-wall wit. Do not be dissuaded by the subject – Keyworth’s decision to have top surgery – because their beautifully crafted set is about so much more, and most importantly packed with jokes from soup to nuts. If I was a judge, Keyworth would win the Award. We will find out at lunchtime on Saturday if the panel shares my sense of humour.
