The Skinny and Fest, Capital Theatres and Premier Scotland have announced the winners of the week three’s The Besties in the following categories:
The Spooky Award – Ghouls Aloud for Elysium, Gilded Balloon
The New Writing Award - Emma Frankland for No Apologies, Summerhall
Lifetime Achievement Award for contributions to Scottish publishing - 404 Ink, Edinburgh International Book Festival
The Dissident Award - Abdolreza Kahani for Mortician, Edinburgh International Film Festival
The Radgie Award - Rosa Garland for Primal Bog, Assembly Roxy
The Alt Reekie Award - Liam Withnail for Big Strong Boy, Monkey Barrell
The Fringe Legend Award - Mark Silcox for The Gold Trader, PBH Free Fringe, Voodoo Rooms
The award ceremony took place on Saturday 23rd August at the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh, hosted by Jess Robinson, whose show Jess Robinson: Your Song is at Assembly George Square Gardens until Sunday.
The Besties awards, designed by artist Camillo Feuchter a recent graduate of Interior & Environmental Design at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee, use recyclable plastics gathered by the partners and leftover wood sourced locally.
Reflecting the broad and diverse coverage both magazines produce every summer and celebrating the breadth of Edinburgh’s Festivals, The Besties span all the festival activity taking place in the city over the month of August, including the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Edinburgh International Festival, Edinburgh Art Festival, Edinburgh International Book Festival and the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
Winners of The Besties are chosen each week by the editorial teams of The Skinny and Fest, drawing on their cross-festival expertise to celebrate the best work happening anywhere in the festivals.
BESTIES WEEK 3 WINNERS
The Spooky Award
for Spookiness
Ghouls Aloud for Elysium
The team wanted to celebrate Milly Blue and Jessie Maryon Davies’ (AKA Ghouls Aloud) spectacular combination of original music, humour and drama to tell a story of neoliberalism’s version of alienation. They expertly use the genre of horror to evoke the repressive policies used by the UK government to silence dissent on their complicity in genocide in Gaza. The Fest review describes it as “a remarkable theatrical and musical exploration of personal relationships. Specifically how these social dynamics are impacted by the growing isolation society faces as technological alienation grips the 21st century.”
Elysium, Gilded Balloon at Appleton Tower (Ruby), 12.20pm, until Sun 24 Aug
The New Writing Award
Emma Frankland for No Apologies
A defiant and arresting show about wishful thinking - Emma Frankland uses the staging of Nirvana’s 1993 MTV Unplugged concert to frame a show that delves into the intricacies and realities of the trans experience. Fest editor Arusa Qureshi says “No Apologies uses the enduring internet conspiracy theories about Cobain being a trans woman as its focal point, but ultimately, this is not a show about Cobain’s trans identity… It is part-tribute and part-vigil, to the heroes we hold up high on pedestals, and the trans lives that deserve so much better.”
No Apologies, Summerhall (Anatomy Lecture Theatre), until Sun 24 Aug, 8.45pm; extended full-band version of the show at Summerhall (Dissection Room), Sat 23 Aug, 5.30pm
[Organisational] Lifetime Achievement Award
for contributions to Scottish publishing
404 Ink
For nearly a decade, independent publishers 404 Ink have been absolutely pivotal to the development of new writing talent in Scotland. Their Inklings series has offered a first publishing opportunity to some of the country’s most interesting and impactful writers, producing publications which explore radical ideas in a pocket-sized format. Their highly ethical approach to profit distribution should be an inspiration to the rest of the industry. They and their authors have been regular features on the Edinburgh International Book Festival stage since their founding. 404 Ink recently announced that they’re going to be winding up the business in summer 2026 and moving on to new and undoubtedly even more inspiring challenges. We wanted to take this opportunity to celebrate their work, their influence, their legacy.
The Dissident Award
Abdolreza Kahani for Mortician
Abdolreza Kahani is an immensely courageous filmmaker. After having several of his films banned in Iran, Kahani has found a new home in Canada, where he’s begun making what he calls “one-person cinema”, which he shoots cheaply on his iPhone. Needing neither permission nor financial support to work in this way, and performing the roles of writer, director, producer, director of photography, and editor on his films, he’s been creating work of incredible invention and political force that speaks openly and honestly about the cruelty of the regime back home and the influence it still tries to enforce on fellow dissidents like himself.
His wonderful new film, Mortician, which had its world premiere at Edinburgh International Film Festival, is a barnstormer. It centres on a lugubrious mortician, who specialises in the Islamic tradition of washing corpses before burial, and the friendship he forms with a dissident Iranian pop star who’s in hiding. At first glance, Mortician is an odd-couple comedy, but it has some devastating left turns that remind us of the real-world dangers for people under the eye of the Iranian regime.
Mortician had its world premiere at Edinburgh International Film Festival
The Radgie Award
Rosa Garland for Primal Bog
The team felt Rosa Garland’s Primal Bog represented the true unhinged spirit of the Fringe. “You can’t cover yourself in piss every day and not get something for it,” one judge was heard to observe. The Fest review said, “Primal Bog is a show about queer intimacy, desire and shame, and how liberating it can be to dive into the swamp and embrace the chaos, warts and all. Through her surreal merging of clowning and comedic performance art, Garland invites us all to find joy in the mess and take pleasure in the playfulness.”
Rosa Garland: Primal Bog, Assembly Roxy (Downstairs), until Sun 24 Aug, 9.50pm
The Alt Reekie Award
Liam Withnail for Big Strong Boy
This award goes to Liam Withnail for Big Strong Boy and also for the consistently high calibre of his Fringe hours leading up to this. His new show tells Withnail’s story of moving to Edinburgh, where he’s since become a key player in a Scottish comedy scene getting stronger by the year. The panel felt that his work deserves to be more celebrated, and he is a worthy first winner of the Alt Reekie aka The Award for Best Scottish Comedian Unfairly Overlooked the London Comedy Elite / Establishment. On Big Strong Boy, multiple members of the judging panel advocated for it passionately. The Fest reviewer emphasises Withnail’s charm, likeability and ultimately, heart.
Liam Withnail: Big Strong Boy, Monkey Barrel (MB1), until Sun 24 Aug, 6.10pm and an extra show at Monkey Barrel 4 TODAY at 2.10pm
The Fringe Legend Award
Mark Silcox for The Gold Trader
In a crowded comic field, Mark Silcox stands out – but not in the way you might expect. As The Skinny said in their five-star review of his new show The Gold Trader, “Dr Silcox’s reputation for being dry, meandering, inefficient and uncharismatic feels like the antithesis of standup”, and yet he, hilariously, always makes it work.
Silcox wins our Fringe Legend Award for his unshakeable, years-long commitment to the bit. His solo shows, packed with super-dry Powerpoint gags and faintly antagonistic audience interactions, are one of a kind, and he brings that same energy to mixed bills and late-night gigs across the festival. Mark judged an incognito comedy competition at midnight last Saturday; he repeatedly told the MC he didn’t know who the contestants were, even as they gave him increasingly strained clues. Oh, and he was wearing a crown the entire time. Mark Silcox knows what he wants to do, and he does it – and that’s what makes him a Fringe Legend.
Mark Silcox: The Gold Trader, PBH Free Fringe @ Voodoo Rooms (Speakeasy), until Sun 24 Aug, 2pm, free entry, unticketed, pay-what-you-want on exit
