The Leicester Comedy Festival has hosted its annual award ceremony at The Haymarket Theatre (Leicester) honouring comedians, venues and promoters. The ceremony was hosted by Mark Dolan and attended by Nicholas Parsons who collected the Legend of Comedy Award. Previous legends have included Victoria Wood, Barry Cryer, Rik Mayall, Ken Dodd and Sir Norman Wisdom.

The awards, set up in 2006, recognise the contribution people make to the February festival

Festival director, Geoff Rowe said “I am thrilled that Nicholas attended the ceremony to collect the trophy and join us to celebrate 25 years of Leicester Comedy Festival.  Nicholas celebrated a record breaking 50 years of hosting Just A Minute last December and has appeared at our festival many times over the years.  It is an honour to recognise his contribution to British comedy with this award.  The ceremony also allowed us to celebrate the acts, venues, promoters and other organisations whose hard work has helped make this year the most successful in Leicester Comedy Festival’s history.”

Winners at the ceremony included:

Best Show                                         Lloyd Langford: Six Quid's Worth of Jokes

Best Debut Show                              Peter Fleming: Have You Seen?

Best New Show                                Andrew Ryan: Sure, You Know Yourself

Best Musical Show                           Flo & Joan

Best Improv Show                            Conversation Garden Does A 'Bake Off' Themed Murder Mystery

Best Kids Show                                The Dark Room 4 Kids

Best Venue (under 200 capacity)    Firebug

Best Venue (over 200 capacity)      De Montfort Hall 

Best New Venue                               The Cosy Club

Liberty Award                                   Kids Comedy Hub

Best Promoter                                  Jokes On Us

Community Award                           A Bellyful of Laughs in aid of Charity Link

Best poster                                      Adele Cliff: Sheep

Leicestershire Favourite Joke           Mark Dolan 

Lifetime Contribution                       The Y

Legend of Comedy                           Nicholas Parsons

The festival produces a series of unique events each February, many of which have gone on to become cult hits, and in the case of The UK Pun Championships, even developing its own national day, #UKPunday, which trended throughout Monday 12th February, generating over 103.5 million impressions on Twitter.

How shows are judged:

All shows listed in the office festival guide are checked for eligibility. Every eligible show is seen by members of the awards panel in combination with members of the admin team and carefully selected scouts. The Awards panel is made up of previous panelists, people working in comedy and comedy fans from all over the country.

Leicester Comedy Festival 2019 will take place from the 6-24 February.  For more information visit www.comedy-festival.co.uk