Edinburgh Comedy Award

The Edinburgh Comedy Award nominations have been released, with eight acts up for the main award and seven up for Best Newcomer. In my view, there are some particularly strong candidates this year. James Acaster has been nominated for the fourth consecutive year and frankly, I hope he wins it this year. He has made a consistantly outstanding contribution to the Edinburgh Fringe and to UK comedy and would be a deserving winner.

Having said that, I've been impressed with Nish Kumar in the past and will try and catch his show at some point. Likewise Joseph Morpurgo, whose character driven lunacy I enjoyed last year. Lunacy is also an apt word to describe the work of Sam Simmons. Hopefully, I'll be able to see all three before the year is out.

I was also one of Trygve Wakenshaw's many admirers at this year's festival and his nomination for the mime based fun of "Nautilus" is also well deserved. Seymour Mace and Sarah Kendall have been a bit below the radar this year and I don't know much about either of the shows but it's good to see The Stand recognised with a nomination.

 In terms of Best Newcomer, there's been a lot of buzz surrounding the sketch group Daphne and there's appearances from The Ghosts Of Stainbank Competition Finals Past with Adam Hess and Sofie Hagen. I'll admit I'm biased. I want Tom Parry to win it, not just because his show was very funny but because he's consistently made me laugh more than most other people in comedy over the past few years. The results will be announced on Saturday.

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