foster's Award
Foster's is no longer the sponsor of the Edinburgh Comedy Awards.
Awards producer Nica Burns has announced that the new sponsor will be travel and lifestyle brand and one of the UK’s largest ticketing agents, lastminute.com.
OK, serves me right for googling my name on Twitter. As the end of the Fringe approached I wrote a piece speculating on who might make the Foster’s Edinburgh Comedy Award shortlist. For my sins I did not pick out many women, mentioning that it was “not a strong female field this year”.
Australia's Sam Simmons has won this year's Foster's Edinburgh Comedy Award.
The Foster's Edinburgh Comedy Award Best Newcomer Award has been awarded to Sofie Hagen.
The Panel Prize Award has gone to Karen Koren, artistic director of The Gilded Balloon.
The awards were presented by cricketer Freddie Flintoff alongside the 2014 Award winner John Kearns at Edinburgh’s Dovecot Studios.
This year’s eight-strong Foster’s Award nominations list was the longest-ever list, but that didn’t stop plenty of grumbling in Edinburgh's bars last night. Unless every Fringe show is nominated – and there were more than 600 eligible this year – there will always be those that are disgruntled. I was pretty happy with the list but still surprised at some omissions.
Editor's note: this is a review of Riches' performance at the Edinburgh Festival in August. He is doing the same show at the Soho Theatre until January 3. Tickets and dates here.
Interesting Foster's Edinburgh Comedy Awards shortlist.
The Pleasance
****
There are comedians who shoot out gags like machine gun fire and then there is James Acaster. The slow burn Kettering stand-up bagged a Foster's Comedy Award nomination for his show Prompt last year and he has returned, guns discreetly blazing, with a new mini-masterpiece, which refines his idiosyncratic technique and quirky stage persona.
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