The (ISH) Edinburgh Comedy Awards Best Show and Best Newcomer shortlists have been announced.
The organisers say that a collective of around 35 volunteers have seen all eligible comedy shows (full run, not compilation) between them and have chosen 11 shows for the Best Show list and 5 for Best Newcomer The winners will be announced on Saturday 26th August at the ceremony at The Three Sisters (Maggie's Chamber) along with the Panel Prize.
The ISH Edinburgh Comedy Awards is a new alternative set of awards announced when the long-established Edinburgh Comedy Awards did not have a sponsor.
Tickets are available for the 40-minute ceremony here:
Here are the short lists in alphabetical order:
BEST SHOW
- Ed Byrne: Tragedy Plus Time - Assembly
- Ian Smith: Crushing - Monkey Barrel
- Janine Harouni: Man'oushe - Pleasance
- Julia Masli: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha - Monkey Barrel
- Luke Kempner in Gritty Police Drama: A One-Man Musical - Pleasance
- Marjolein Robertson: Marj - The Stand
- Paul Currie: Shtoom - Just The Tonic
- Paul Foot: Dissolve - Underbelly
- Phil Ellis's Excellent Comedy Show - Monkey Barrel
- Seymour Mace Does Drawring - The Stand
- Sid Singh: Table for One - Free Festival Cabaret Voltaire
BEST NEWCOMER
- Dan Tiernan: Going Under - Monkey Barrel
- Fiona Ridgewell: No-Nonsense - PBH Free Fringe Banshee Labyrinth
- Kelly McCaughan: Catholic Guilt - Underbelly
- Lachlan Werner: Voices of Evil - Pleasance
- Lorna Rose Treen: Skin Pigeon - Pleasance
Comedy Producer and comedian Sarah Bowles is running the ISH Awards. Sarah Bowles says ‘Choosing the short lists was seemingly harder than choosing the long lists, even though we all had to see far less shows this time! It was so hard that we were aiming for 10 for Best Show and ended up with 11. We know from talking to most of the long-listed shows that they are very happy to be long listed. As one person said, “I’m made up, I can use this forever’. That’s why we wanted to long-list early, to give people a boost in the middle of the Fringe, both in terms of ticket sales and more importantly emotionally. There’s a lot of artists on the panel of the ISH Comedy Awards and we understand this. We also understand that it’s tricky sometimes not to be nominated, or not to be considered because our rules make some shows ineligible. We get that too, but we come back to what we’ve said all along – a fraction of people get nominated for anything, and it comes down to luck sometimes - a prominent comedy critic gave lots of shows 4 and 5 star reviews that they didn’t nominate for the long-list.
To repeat myself from our long list announcement, these lists obviously do not represent by any means the definitive list of what is the best at the Fringe, it's just our panel of judges' opinions, everyone's opinion is different, that was certainly the case in our judges who had very different opinions on shows. At the end of the day you will hear much better from the streets and word of mouth what to see, always listen to the streets rather than awards and reviews. That said, we are looking forward to the Edinburgh Comedy Awards nominations this week too, and thank them again for the really kind words of positivity they have given us for this initiative - everyone's positivity and support, particularly from all the venues, has blown us away.
And now comes the trickiest thing of all, choosing the winners. But we also think... does it really matter who wins? ‘Everyone is a winner’ is said sometimes but I think here it’s actually the case – and funnily enough particularly if there is no big cash prize if we don’t get sponsorship. In some ways it doesn’t matter who wins now…ish. Hang on, of course it does! And there is still time to sponsor us, we wanted 20k but (as it's the final week) we’ll take 10k now, with 2.5k going to each of the winners and 5k for the Panel Prize - the judges have already voted on that and rest assured it is a very worthy cause. Come on people, industry, venues, comedy community, one of you is minted!'
If you would like to find out more about the awards and maybe sponsor them, please visit the website. If you sponsor your name will replace ISH in the awards name on the website and all publicity. Please get in touch through the website www.edinburghcomedyawards.com for more information. Otherwise the trophy is what will count this Saturday!
