How To Win The Edinburgh Comedy Award For Best Show

If that title doesn't grab you how about 'Alternative Comedy Awards List'?

Well that's a wrap, I'm home and the Edinburgh Fringe 2024 seems like a million years ago. But now the dust has settled I've had a chance to think about the awards. Amy Gledhill was a deserving winner of the Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Show, but at the back of my mind I've always got a soft spot for the ones that got away.

The trouble with the Edinburgh Comedy Awards is that once the nominations are announced on the final Wednesday it feels like the rest of the shows are failures. there were reportedly 563 eligible shows this year, so after seven were announced on the shortlist thats 556 acts who have put their heart and soul into the Fringe and now feel on the scrapheap.

They shouldn't feel that way. One thing about reviews is that they endorse shows who might not make the awards cut (though I’d wager most acts would swap all their good reviews for a nomination). And obviously you can have a hit without an awards nomination. Obviously you can still be a success. Obviously you might leave Edinburgh having sold out but lost money, but that's another story.

I thought all the nominees this year were really impressive, but then it was a particularly strong year all round. One can easily imagine a Sliding Doors scenario where a completely different, but just as worthy, septet was nominated. So with that in mind here is my Alternative Edinburgh Comedy Awards - the ones that got away...

Mat Ewins – You can’t say the judges don't know what this madcap multimedia maestro does. Ewins did pick up a nomination in 2017, but if anything he is even better now, with an absolute grasp of the latest technology (props to his nimble fingered partner Kate Palmer on the desk ). Ewins is loopy, zany and so fast with a visual gag if you blink you will miss around three. There was a time when I thought technology might make stand-up stale and over-reliant on gimmicks. Ewins takes those gimmicks and runs with them. Maybe he gets overlooked because he is English. Sam Campbell has a similarly surreal, irreverent sensibility and is worshipped like an antipodean god. Maybe Ewins needs an Australian passport.

Garry Starr - just what does Starr have to do to get on the awards list? If you wanted something crowdpleasing look know further. Starr involved the audience in his spectacular show in which he delivered a sideways history of Penguin books in a joyously inclusive way that I haven't seen since the heyday of The Boy With Tape On His Face. Oh, did I mention that he was naked from the waist down throughout? I asked a friend why. They explained it's because penguins don't wear clothes. At least the Malcolm Hardee Awards saw sense and awarded Starr their Act That Should Make A Million Quid top prize.

Dylan Mulvaney – here’s another act that inexplicably missed out on the main list. I was not on the Awards panel this year so wasn't privy to their deliberations. Maybe Mulvaney's show Faghag, about the trials and tribulations of transitioning, was a little too theatrical, with it's Barbie-pink backdrop and musical set-pieces. But it was in the comedy section of the Fringe brochure so was presumably eligible. On the night I went the audience was cheering and whooping hysterically like I've never heard at a Fringe show. It was more like a cross between a singalong screening of The Rocky Horror Show and a religious revivalist meeting. An award would've been the icing on the cake but Mulvaney hardly needs it. If Faghag isn't a West End hit within a year I'll eat my Moleskine notebook. 

Chloe Petts – OK I give up, I admit defeat. Maybe I'm a jinx. Every year I've tipped Petts for a prize, firstly for the Newcomer category and now for the main category. And every year Petts has missed out. I did hear a whisper that it was close this year, but I wonder what more Petts can do to please the judges. Bribe them? Send them cake? Do a dance and a jig? Petts is one of my favourite stand-ups. No, scrub that, Petts is one of the best stand-ups around. What is that line in Pretty Woman? Big mistake. Big. Huge. 

Alfie Brown – There was no way Brown was ever going to get onto the official Edinburgh Comedy Awards list. He got into hot water a while back after old clips of him using a non-woke word were unearthed. But then that's the thing about this divisive stand-up. As he says himself he tells woke jokes but in a non-woke way and that is always likely to land him in choppy waters. In fact I'm surprised there weren't moves to have his 2022 nomination withdrawn. His latest opus Open Hearted Human Enquiry found him overthinking brilliantly, whether discussing cancellation, death or a hellish family holiday. All this plus a brilliant Denis Norden impression. What's not to love?

Anyway, that would have been my six of the best. The Edinburgh Comedy Awards opted for seven shows this year so if you have one more to add do please let me know in the comments.

Read more Edinburgh reviews here.