Foster’s Edinburgh Comedy Awards 2014: Interviews with the winners

The Foster’s Edinburgh Comedy Awards (formerly the Perrier’s) are often considered “the Oscars of comedy”. There are three awards: Best Comedy Show (£10,000), Best Newcomer (£5,000) and Panel Prize (£5,000). Previous winners and nominees have gone on to become household name star comedians.

This year, history at the awards was made. John Kearns, who won Best Newcomer last year for his show ‘Sight Gags for Perverts’, won Best Comedy Show for his show ‘Shtick’ – an achievement that is remarkable and unprecedented, particularly as John performed on the Free Fringe with no PR, no flyers and no posters around Edinburgh yet the show was consistently packed out throughout the month every day. John is brilliant and original and so is his show.

American comedian Alex Edelman won Best Newcomer, an award for comedians performing their debut hour at the Fringe. Whilst only being 25-years-old, Alex has been gigging all around the world since he was 15-years-old and his show ‘Millennial’ focused on exploring this generation with other very funny stories.

The Foster’s Edinburgh Comedy Awards has an awards team made up of judges and scouts. However, the Panel Prize is decided by the panel only and can be awarded to anything, if at all. This year, Phil Ellis won the award for a children’s show called ‘Funz and Gamez’. Word of mouth during the Fringe is ridiculously important and influential and the show received a lot of attention from critics and audiences throughout the run.

The shows have upcoming runs in London and around the U.K. I recommend you see as many of the shows nominated for the awards – and of course the winners – as it’s some of the best live comedy in the world.

Check out interviews with the winners below:

Best Comedy Show – John Kearns: Shtick

Interview with John Kearns - Foster's Edinburgh Comedy Awards Best Comedy Show