Here is the full text of the welcome speech Nica Burns, who runs the Foster's Edinburgh Comedy Awards, made today at a lunch attended by industry folk and journalists at Ghillie Dhu in the city centre. It is interesting that while Burns passionately champions comedy, she talks mainly about comedy on television here, attacking the forthcoming cost-cutting measure of moving BBC3 online and hoping that other networks do not follow suit. It's certainly a provocative piece and was powerfully delivered. Not that everyone will agree with parts of it – is TV that important any more in an increasingly online world? Surely the real roots of comedy are in comedy clubs and places like the Fringe? Is the Holy Grail your own TV series as Burns suggests? Now read on...
"Welcome to the Foster’s Comedy Awards annual movers and shakers comedy industry lunch. Hope you like our lovely new venue.
What a great opening we’re having to the Fringe this year. Comedy ticket sales are very strong and some shows are already selling out. The forced move of the Underbelly’s cow to George Square has been a huge success and it’s great to see Karen Coren’s Gilded Balloon sign above the hoardings in Bristo Square.
The new international festival director Fergus Linehan started his festival with showbiz razzamatazz on Friday with his fantastic free son and lumiere event. Nearly 20,000 people turned up to enjoy some great choral music and fantastic projections, which also highlighted the beautiful Edinburgh architecture.
Comedy has been the largest strand of entertainment since 2008. We all know how it works. As Andrew Maxwell says “it’s a school for clowns”. You develop your craft here and if you’re good, grow your audience. Word of mouth, a good review, some publicity, an award, more word of mouth, more audiences. But what happens next
As one senior comedy manager said to me recently, never has television and live work been so interdependent. If you are to graduate out of the comedy clubs and arts centres to the five hundred seat theatre and then on beyond to the golden ticket, which is the Arena, you have to do television.
The traditional route was a comedy series on BBC Radio 4 (and BBC radio comedy is a huge developer of young talent) and then perhaps you’ll start to get TV appearances as a panel member on ‘8 out of 10 Cats , ‘Buzzcocks’, Argumental, Mock The Week and finally ‘Have I Got News For You’ on BBC1. Live at the Apollo and Michael McIntyre’s Roadshow have been fantastic for comics.
Speech continues here.
