Comedy double act The Pin have been nominated for a Times Breakthrough Award as part of the South Bank Sky Arts Awards.
Ben Ashenden and Alex Owen have kept busy during lockdown with the online comedy sketches skewering Zoom and also had a show in the West End. The Comeback opened before Christmas but then had to close when further lockdown measures were introduced. It now reopens in July.
In the play up-and-coming comics Alex and Ben have been booked in the warm-up spot for a beloved but fading double act’s comeback tour. Neither duo are delighted to be playing to a sparse crowd in a sleepy, seaside town, but when it’s revealed that a Hollywood director is in the audience, both acts glimpse a final chance for their big break. Cue sabotage, mistaken identity and full on farcical mayhem, as the performance descends into a desperate battle for the limelight. With the action alternating between offstage and on, and the tone between Noises Off and Morecambe and Wise’s old-school charm, this is a warm-hearted, joyful, and dazzlingly funny new comedy.
Each night Ashenden and Owen will be joined on stage by a surprise celebrity guest star playing a cameo role in the production.
Ben Ashenden and Alex Owen said when the run was announced: "After 8 years of lugging props between tiny venues, and 8 months of watching those props gather dust, we feel ridiculously excited and fortunate to be bringing a play to the West End. For it to have been developed with and presented by a producer of Sonia Friedman's immense standing makes us very proud, and provides ample material for anxiety dreams in which hidden cameras are revealed and words like "prank" shouted. We hope to provide 90 minutes of silliness, escapism, and extremely well dusted props."
The other nominees are Mishka Rushdie Momen, Noah Jupe, Samuel Bailey, Arlo Parks, Alberta Whittle and Arielle Smith.
As already announced, Feel Good, Home and Ghosts have all been nominated in the Best Comedy category.
The winners will be revealed on 19 July at The Savoy and will air on Thursday 22 July at 9pm on Sky Arts, the UK’s only free-to-air TV channel dedicated to arts, music and culture.
