How the Edinburgh Fringe learnt to laugh again
The past winners’ list for the Edinburgh Comedy Awards is a who’s who of British talent: Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson – and that’s just the inaugural class of 1981. The UK’s most prestigious comedy prize has always had a knack for getting it right, recognising the talents of Steve Coogan, Dylan Moran, Bridget Christie and Al Murray early in their careers.
When I was asked to help choose the next name to join that list, I felt daunted at the prospect of what seemed an impossible task. I was part of a panel of judges and scouts, all watching up to eight shows a day to whittle down almost 700 acts to two winners: Best Show and Best Newcomer. Through a set of six-hour meetings, every single eligible show was discussed (in some cases very briefly: a unanimous cry of “genius!” or “tripe!” is often enough). A shortlist was typed out – and then the judges headed off to watch every nominated act again.
In fact, the task was joyous but also exhausting. Battered by the dreich Scottish climate, surviving on cold chips and warm lager, I’ve finished the month with scurvy, rickets and a thousandyard stare. Stand-up comedy, however, is in rude health. In recent years, the ECAs have prompted grumbling in some quarters for praising important but challenging work over shows with mainstream appeal. Winning shows from Marmite absurdists John Kearns (2014) and Sam Simmons (2015) were followed by harrowing tales of assault from Richard Gadd (2016) and Hannah Gadsby (2017). Writing on industry website Chortle, 2017’s Scottish Comedian of the Year award-winner Leo Kearse complained that the ECAs lately have “heinously overlooked the concept of actual comedy that makes people laugh”. This year’s shortlists, however, proved otherwise. “Actual comedy” is back in force. Gimmick-free comedians have dominated both lists through their unignorable talent. Newcomer Ciarán Dowd’s winning show is character comedy so old-fashioned it’s practically 17th century, poking fun at the same swashbuckling clichés Cervantes mocked in Don
Quixote. It’s also the single funniest thing you will see this year. Meanwhile, the five women on the newcomer list (a majority, for the first time) are all straight-downthe-line standups destined for mainstream success. On the main list, one-liner merchant Glenn Moore and observational stand-up Felicity Ward have no serious message at all, but reduce their audiences to giggling jellies by rattling through eight punchlines a minute.
One omission that’s bound to prompt debate is Natalie Palamides’s Nate – a gender-bending clown show that breaks every rule of audience interaction. But its absence from this list feels apt; it’s a brave and ambitious (if not wholly successful) work that wants to provoke. A win would somehow remove the edginess from Palamides’s work.
There are subtler ways of making a point. A new generation of young stand-ups are using traditional, mainstream techniques to shed a new light on the most important issues of the day – but in a way that feels genuinely open-minded, rather than hectoring and divisive. For example, the fiery Ahir Shah, a diehard atheist, has written a profoundly affecting stand-up routine about death, love and religion which treats faith with respect, reserving its sharpest barbs for his own know-it-all world-view.
Meanwhile, the slick Alex Edelman – just 29, but very much an old-school New York red-brick-wall comic – tackles the rise of the far-Right with a gripping and hilarious true story of how he infiltrated a neo-Nazi meeting on a whim. Glasgow’s Larry Dean, 28, looks set to be the next Billy Connolly. His show hinges on that rarest of things: an uplifting break-up story. While he talked about saying goodbye to his Australian boyfriend, I watched a burly Celtic fan wipe away a tear.
As more people turn to YouTube or Netflix for their comedy, it sometimes feels as if the unpredictable thrill of live performance is becoming a thing of the past. Luckily this year’s winner Rose Matafeo is here to save it. In many ways, the 26-year-old New Zealander’s show is a mess. It’s filled with wobbly projector slides, niche pop-culture references and internet memes. She hurtles through ideas so quickly that even her motormouthed delivery can’t keep up. And yet the net result is something joyous, even magical.
Matafeo flies by the seat of her pants, capturing the giddy thrill of young love and heartbreak in a way that gives voice to a specific generation, while speaking to audiences of any age. Matafeo’s win proves comedy is once again a laughing matter.