by The Edinburgh Comedy Award, the annual “Oscar of Comedy”, which was awarded the best show in Fringe, was won by Sam Nicoresti for Baby Doomer, which is based on a humiliating experience in a department store.
The Standup Birmingham is the first transgender winner of the prestigious award after almost missed for Jordan Gray in 2022 and Eddie Izzard 34 years ago. Nicoresti bags £ 10,000 prize money and when assuming the award, they joked that they promised their partner a year ago to pay for their upcoming wedding.
Ayoade Bamgboye was won for the show swings and rooms at a ceremony that was organized by last year’s winner Amy Gledhill, the best newcomer price worth £ 5,000. The Londoner, who grew up in Nigeria, was in tears in tears of the price rental, which in the past started the career of acts such as Sarah Millican, Harry Hill and The Mighty Boosh. The Victoria Wood Award, which was awarded to those who “embody the True Spirit of the Fringes”, went to the Comedy Club 4 Kids, which heads children and workshops for children, for the 20 -year anniversary.
The director of the comedy Awards, the West -Theater producer Nica Burns, said: “Our winners from 2025 are currently capturing the spirit of the comedy: courageous, brilliant and deeply connected to the audience. In different ways, they reminded everyone who feels completely at that moment and have a laugh, while they say something permanently.”
Traditionally, the ceremony rounded off on Saturday at 12 p.m. before an audience of comics and industry numbers was at noon. The former winners Adam Riches and John Kearns appeared in a line of the disrespectful co-moderator of the award and performed in character as Crooners Ball and Boe and delivered angular gags, and it provided Gledhill about the ambivalent relationship of the fringe with Scottish comedy and the residents of Edinburgh.
Give or take the league-a-head quality of the former best newcomer Cat Cohen’s Show Broad Strokes, mystitial not on the shortlist (and took part in Tina Fey last night), Nicorestis Sieg was well earned. This year, this year, after you have achieved an early success with more left-wing field work (you are a prominent member of a comedy collective named Weirdos) and deals with life as a trans woman in a spirit of joy, playfulness and self-disguise, which could clearly grasp the hearts of the mainstream audience.
I would have greeted your victory-I would have been happy that another star-in-the-making star John Tothill would have rewarded. After brush with malaria and appendicitis in recent years (as was told in this year’s show) not lead to a close death experience.
A nomination for the queer Canadian performance art/comedy -duo the creepy boys with her shows slugs ensured the welcoming representation at the top table of the comedy for the most fradful edge work. Bamgboye’s victory was irrefutable: sharp, commanding and with star quality in spade it goes to places. Hopefully one of these places will be Fringe next year. The festival is still the most electrifying goal in the live comedy.
Figures that are to be published in the coming weeks will show how the event has come into account in difficult times for the performing arts. But as the comedy Awards have proven again, for new talents, wild creativity and great laughter -and for practicing and audience -the Edinburgh -Fringe remains the most exciting place.
