ED2016 News

Speedy News #05: Awards Round Up

By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 29 August 2016

So there have been lots of awards dished out in the last few days of the Festival, and here is a very speedy round up of some of them.

FINAL FRINGE FIRSTS
The Scotsman presented the final set of its Fringe First trophies to the new plays its critics most rated this year. And the third and final batch was an even bigger windfall for Summerhall, which has totally dominated these awards this year. Summerhall shows ‘One Hundred Homes’, ‘Scorch’, ‘Growth’ and ‘Letters To Windsor House’ all got a gong, as did ‘The Duke’ at the Pleasance and ‘JOAN’ at Underbelly.

THE STAGE EDINBURGH AWARDS
Theatre industry newspaper The Stage also dished out its annual Edinburgh Fringe awards this month, which these days are presented throughout the Festival, rather than in one final batch at the end. These celebrate performers and ensembles, with winners including: Kill The Beast for ‘Don’t Wake The Damp’; Liam Brennan for ‘Diary Of A Madman’; Charlotte Josephine for ‘Blush’; Penelope McDonald and Emma Romy-Jones for ‘Care Takers’; Lucy Jane Parkinson for ‘JOAN’; Nancy Sullivan for ‘Fabric’; and One Year Lease for ‘Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally’. Mark Thomas also got a special award.

THE TOTAL THEATRE AWARDS
The Total Theatre Awards, celebrating ‘total theatre experiences’, also returned this Fringe, with seven awards presented in five categories. ‘Ockham’s Razor:Tipping Point’ took the circus prize; Mauro Paccagnella and Alessandro Bernardeschi won the dance gong for ‘Happy Hour’; and Briefs Factory won in the ‘playing with form’ category for ‘Hot Brown Honey’. And there were two winners in the emerging company category – FK Alexander for ‘(I Could Go On Singing) Over The Rainbow’ and Yinka Kuitenbrouwer for ‘One Hundred Homes’ – and also in the physical/visual theatre category – ‘Bildraum’ and ‘Cock And Bull’.

EDINBURGH COMEDY AWARDS
Onto the Edinburgh Comedy Awards, and you all presumably know already that Richard Gadd took the big prize this time at the now Lastminute.com sponsored comedy awards shindig, while Scott Gibson was named Best Newcomer. The customary Panel Prize went to Bob Slayer and team for the ‘Iraq Out & Loud’ project.

THE MALCOLM HARDEE AWARD
More comedy shenanigans, and The Malcolm Hardee Awards returned once again this Fringe. Paul Vickers took the main prize for Comic Originality for his show ‘Twonkey’s Mumbo Jumbo Hotel’, while ‘Come Look At The Baby’ – a show where you come and look at a baby for half an hour – was declared the Act Most Likely To Make A Million Quid. The publicity stunt celebrating Cunning Stunt award went to Becky Fury for flyering on Tindr and bragging about being a Lastminute Comedy finalist, thanks to once being a finalist at a comedy club called Lastminute.

SO YOU THINK YOU’RE FUNNY (pictured)
Some more comedy, and Gilded Balloon’s new-talent fest So You Think You’re Funny had its final for 2016 last week, with Heidi Regan winning, and Ruth Hunter the first runner-up and Danielle Walker the second.

THREEWEEKS EDITORS’ AWARDS
And don’t forget, we presented the ThreeWeeks Editors’ Awards yesterday, celebrating the ten people and projects that we think made this year’s Edinburgh Festival extra special. And the winners were: zazU, John Robertson, ACJ Productions for ‘Tomorrow, Maybe’, Gideon Irving, Gaël Le Cornec, Wil Greenway, Bob Slayer, RashDash, Electric Voice Theatre for ‘Superwomen Of Science’ and Goose.

Photo by Steve Ullathorne