The results of the Malcolm Hardee Awards 2022 have been announced during a ceremony at the Edinburgh Fringe.
The awards - handed out in the memory of comic, agent, manager, club-owner and prankster Malcolm Hardee - celebrate and promote the spirit of anything-goes comedy anarchy at the Edinburgh Festival.
This year's winners are:
Comic Originality:
The Flop: A Band Of Idiots (Dan Lees - pictured in yellow jacket with Cammy Sinclair, third member Tom Penn was on holiday). Read review here.
Comedy trio The Flop – Dan Lees, Tom Penn and Cammy Sinclair - performed their show at The Banshee Labyrinth at 10:10pm between the 6th and 20th August. Their brochure blurb explains: "60 minutes, 12 notes and three idiots. Musical mayhem and expert clowning from the greatest band in the whole world… ever."
Mr Chonkers was also nominated in this category. Read a review here.
Cunning Stunt:
Ivor Dembina (pictured)
The 2022 Cunning Stunt prize goes to comedian Ivor Dembina, for his reaction to the Edinburgh bin collection strike, promoting the growing piles of uncollected rubbish as performance art.
Act Most Likely to Make a Million Quid:
Jerry Sadowitz
Originally scheduled to play just two shows at the Pleasance’s EICC venue as part of his national tour Not For Anyone, cult comic and former Hardee protégé Sadowitz made national headlines when his show was unceremoniously axed after its first night, with Pleasance claiming both “[we are] a venue that champions freedom of speech and we do not censor comedians' material,” and “the material presented at his first show is not acceptable … this type of material has no place on the festival”. Coherent, much?
Judges explained "Ironically, after being cancelled, Sadowitz is seeing a huge increase in ticket sales for the show's tour, and is now adding a date at the 3,600+ seater Hammersmith Apollo in November.
"The Million Quid is getting closer for the most unlikely of reasons."
The usual, anarchic awards show was not able to take place this year, but a results ceremony was held at Bob Slayer’s infamous BlundaBus venue at 1 am this morning.
The winners each receive a specially made trophy designed by inventor John Ward.
This year's judging panel was Marissa Burgess, Kate Copstick, Bruce Dessau, Jay Richardson, Claire Smith and Ian Wolf.
The Malcolm Hardee Awards have run since 2005, the year of Malcolm Hardee's death. They ended in 2017, however having been 'much missed' at the 2018 festival, they have now been revived by British Comedy Guide, with the blessing of original organiser John Fleming and the Hardee family.
Find out more about the awards and previous winners at:
https://www.comedy.co.uk/hardees/
Pictures © British Comedy Guide
