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The shortlist has been announced for the annual Edinburgh comedy award, and it’s a list that majors in whimsy. With an act hymning his belief in healing crystals, another dreamily counting sheep and a third whose show is about “mystery and messages” – and that’s before we even get to the loopy DIY comedy of TV veteran Spencer Jones – this year’s “Oscars of comedy” nominees (for both the best show and best newcomer prize) suggest an art form exploding with creativity but also increasingly oriented towards woo-woo: in full flight, perhaps, from our troubled times.
The award favourite is Mexican-American comic Lara Ricote, co-star of Sam Campbell’s Channel 4 mockumentary Make That Movie and former fringe best newcomer. Ricote’s Inkling is a remarkable hour about picking up on the messages that come one’s way, and how that’s complicated by, in the 29-year-old’s case, being hard of hearing.
Returning to the annual shortlist, for an award once known as the Perrier, are Chris Cantrill (a three-time nominee whose double act sidekick Amy Gledhill won in 2024), shouty Mancunian Dan Tiernan (nominated twice before) with Quartz and All and goofball prop comic Jones (also nominated twice before). Jones is the veteran of this year’s list with his own BBC show, The Mind of Herbert Clunkerdunk, already under his belt.
On a shorter list than we’ve seen in recent years, they are joined by Cornwall’s Harriet Dyer, recently announced as a participant in the Halloween edition of Amazon Prime’s smash hit Last One Laughing UK, and whose show Easily Distra … celebrates her inability to stay on topic; and Li Jin Hao, the UK-based Singaporean whose show Falling from a Moon develops the brand of woozy philosophical comedy pioneered in his 2024 show Swimming in a Submarine.
The most egregious omissions from the lineup, which is selected by industry and public panellists, are Elf Lyons with The Woman on the Edge, an extraordinary breakup show that’s got everyone talking; Aussie stunt-comedy offering Man Sings the Same Song Over and Over Again for an Hour; and the Radio 4 sketch trio Crybabies with their brilliantly executed horror pastiche The Scaring.
On the best newcomer shortlist – for an award previously won by Sarah Millican, Tim Minchin and Harry Hill – there’s more whimsy still. Too many kooks, you might say, at a festival where socially engaged or political comedy is vanishingly thin on the ground. Or you could celebrate the surfeit of invention among acts that include Limerick’s Marty Gleeson, a quartet of US clowns performing their Underground Monk Show, and Birmingham teacher turned oddball Tom Towelling, with a show that binds its audience together in wool.
Completing the newcomer nominees, at a time when the proficiency of first-time Edinburgh acts seems to be rocketing, there are Dom McGovern with Prize Hog, TV regular but fringe rookie Fatiha El-Ghorri with Cockney Stacking Doll, Freddie Meredith with the terrific Need a Light? and Omar Badawy with Guided Detour.
Chair of the judging panel Liz Lewin, director of comedy series at Netflix UK, said of the lists: “These are the people shaping the comedy landscape and we can’t wait for audiences beyond Edinburgh to enjoy them as much as we did”. The awards will be handed out at a ceremony this Saturday by 2016 winner Richard Gadd and last year’s best newcomer and now SNL:UK star Ayoade Bamgboye. The winners will receive £10,000 for best show (sponsored by Audible), and £5,000 for best newcomer. Recent winners of the main award include Rose Matafeo, Hannah Gadsby and last year’s champ Sam Nicoresti.
