Winners of the Dave’s Edinburgh Comedy Awards 2022 have been announced including Lara Ricote as Best Newcomer for her show GRL/LATNX/DEF. Lara shot to recognition when she won the Stage Award in last year’s Funny Women Awards.
Founder and director of the Edinburgh Comedy Awards, Nica Burns, described 2022 as a ‘superb year’ at the Edinburgh Fringe, which returned to its pre-Covid vibrancy and provided a vital platform to the best ‘comedy industry in the world’.
The main prize of £10,000 for Best Show was won by Australian comedian and actor Sam Campbell for his appropriately named Comedy Show. Nominees for this award included Funny Women Awards alumni Lauren Pattison for her show It Is What It Is, and Amy Gledhill as half of The Delightful Sausage’s show, Nowt But Sea.
We were never in any doubt about the credentials of Lara Ricote and her show who was honoured as Best Newcomer netting her the £5,000 prize money. Mexican-born and Netherlands-based Lara who has major hearing loss described her win as ‘crazy’, stating that ‘My show isn’t that good – I can make a better one, I swear!’ We look forward to seeing this in the years to come. Nominees again included Amy Gledhill but this time for her debut one-woman show The Girl Before The Girl You Marry.
In a statement Nica Burns said: ‘Lara’s debut act at the Festival is an absolute delight. She’s completely distinct and very funny. She is a stand-out performer who happens to be hearing impaired.’
The Panel Prize went to Best In Class for championing working class comedians, created by Sian Davies, who was runner up to the Funny Women Stage Award in 2019. In her acceptance speech, Sian talked passionately about the prohibitive cost of taking part in the festival and how she was inspired to establish Best In Class after being asked to pay for appearing as part of a mixed bill at the Fringe some years previously.
Best In Class was described by the Awards as ‘a crowd-funded, profit-sharing initiative that champions working-class comedians from across the UK to access the Fringe.’ The arts should be accessible to everyone, regardless of their background so the £5,000 prize money for the Panel Prize will be welcome.
The judging panel consisted of Cherie Cunningham (Channel Director, Dave), Ashley Davies (Metro), Joe Hullait (Channel 4), Isobel Lewis (The Independent), Dominic Maxwell (The Times), Pete Strauss (BBC Studios) and public panellists Paul Abbey, Jo Kinsella and Monique May Munroe, with Sky’s Adnan Ahmed as Chair.
Dave’s Cherie Cunningham says: ‘We’re over the moon to be supporting and celebrating these amazing comics. The standard was incredibly high this year and we’re so pleased to crown such deserving winners. We look forward to seeing Lara and Sam on Dave soon.’
So do we!
