This year’s Edinburgh Fringe seems to be wide open when it comes to awards. Is a newcomer going to win the main Foster’s Award? And if so who? Meanwhile the first major Fringe comedy competition may – or may not – have offered some hints with a final that featured an intriguing mix of newcomers and familiar names.
Richard Gadd has been crowned winner of the Amused Moose Comedy Award 2015. Musical impressionist Jess Robinson was voted People's Champion at the grand final at the Space @ Symposium Hall.
Full review to follow...
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Comedians are always on the lookout for experiences that they can turn into an Edinburgh show. For Diane Spencer that inspirational experience was an Edinburgh show in the first place. Power Tool is the story of her writing Nancy Dell’Olio’s so-bad-it-was-hilarious 2014 Fringe debut juxtaposed with the trauma of doing up a new house that turned into the renovation-from-hell.
There is so much competition for audiences in Edinburgh it helps to have a unique selling point. In the past, Abnormally Funny People, the floating ensemble made up of comedians with various disabilities now celebrating its tenth anniversary, could have cornered their market. But in 2015 disability has been prominent on the Fringe, particularly performers exploring mental health issues onstage. But that doesn’t stop AFP from being very funny.
Cricketer Freddie Flintoff is to present the 2015 Foster’s Edinburgh Comedy Awards alongside the 2014 Award winner, John Kearns.
The winners will be announced on Saturday 29 August at a lunchtime ceremony held at Edinburgh’s Dovecot Studios. The shortlist will be announced on Wednesday 26 August.
Flintoff said: I’m excited about being asked to present the Foster’s Edinburgh Comedy Award as I debut my first ever show at the Edinburgh Fringe. I never thought I’d get to perform alongside so many of my comedy heroes."
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George Egg is surely not the first cook to appear at the Fringe. Ainsley Harriott probably did Edinburgh as part of his double act The Calypso Twins. But Egg must be the first cook to knock up a three-course meal onstage. Certainly the first one to prepare it using bog standard hotel equipment.
Catherine Tate is to return to TV. She will star in a new one-off comedy being made for Gold entitled Do Not Disturb set in a boutique hotel in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Tate will be joined by Miles Jupp and Car Share’s Sian Gibson. Do Not Disturb is due to be broadcast from January 2016. It focuses on estranged husband and wife Anna (Tate) and John (Jupp), who attempt reconciliation talks after her extra marital affair with a much younger man.
Richard Herring has launched a new Kickstarter campaign to help to pay for the filming of the eighth series of Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcasts.
There will be up to 20 episodes in this series, which is more than before, so he is now trying to raise £50,000 by September 12. Last time just over 1000 people raised over £30,000. Guests in Series 7 have included Johnny Vegas, Robert Webb, Louis Theroux and Robin Ince.
There is a long tradition of American artists being quickly embraced in the UK, from Jimi Hendrix to Bill Hicks. I think at the moment Alex Edelman is in the process of joining that illustrious list. Since winning the Foster’s Best Newcomer Award last year he has been spending a lot of time over here, gigging in clubs, honing his new Edinburgh show and winning a lot of new fans with his appearance on The John Bishop Show.
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Before the Fringe started I wrote a preview of Lewis Schaffer and said something like “the good gigs are worth seeing, the bad gigs are utterly, uniquely compelling.” This was one of the good ones. Drop that dead donkey, for Edinburgh 2015 the Nunhead-based New Yorker has actually written a genuinely interesting show.
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