You’d guess – by the two-hour delay to today’s announcement of the Foster’s award not-so-shortlist – that the panel had difficult decisions to make. But they didn’t, really. More so than in most years, there’s been broad consensus about the best comedy shows on the fringe, and sure enough – aside from the not-unexpected exclusion of Richard Gadd’s late-night, bad-taste, stunt-comedy spectacle – this nominees list reflects that. Mind you, we shouldn’t take that for granted: this is a rare instance of an awards shortlist I broadly agree with, which is worth celebrating.
So, who are the frontrunners? Since seeing his show in the opening days of the festival, I’ve had Joseph Morpurgo’s Desert Island Discs episode/homage to charity-shop LPs tagged for the prize: it’s inventive, perfectly formed and has award-winner written all over it. I’d love to see Kieran Hodgson’s Lance grab the glory – it’s been my standout show so far, although it may prove insufficiently novel for the panel, which in recent years has justifiably favoured the new over the excellent-but-conventional.
Might this be James Acaster’s year? He’s been runner-up three years running, and no one has ever had four fruitless nominations. His new show, Represent, is typically masterful: a knotty, nerdy tale of jury service, with weirdly suggestive cosmic and spiritual undercurrents. Last among the acts I’d classify as the favourites (although you could add Sam Simmons’s latest, at a stretch) is Nish Kumar, who stepped up this year with a cracking show, as urgent as it is funny, about the left-wing in comedy and politics.
The other three performers on this longest-ever list were unexpected, at least by me. Sarah Kendall is a fringe veteran, last shortlisted in 2004; have any two nominations for the same act ever come so many years apart? It sounds as if her new show (which I’m seeing tonight) resembles its predecessor: both are pieces of standup storytelling culled from the Aussie comic’s schooldays. Seymour Mace is another old-timer, delivering manic prop-comedy and discussing (ironically enough) his dead-end comedy career. I hadn’t heard much buzz about Kiwi mime act Trygve Wakenshaw’s latest, meanwhile, but I’m excited to see it, and happy that this skilful, charming heir to Dr Brown is getting some awards heat.
With Wakenshaw presumably at the forefront of her mind, awards supremo Nica Burns is spinning this as a good year for physical comedy. It’s certainly a thin year for meat-and-potatoes, man-at-a-mic standup, which is unrepresented. It’s also – excepting Daphne, on the newcomer list – light on sketch, despite strong showings by Minor Delays and The Pin. The latter were surely a near-miss, as I’d guess was Felicity Ward. Both have less grievance than Gadd, whose underground hit Waiting for Gaddot is the undisputed buzz comedy this year.
And as for the newcomers? I’d go for Daphne or Sofie Hagen – partly because it takes a stretchy definition of newcomer to cover both The Story Beast’s John Henry Falle and Tom Parry, taking a solo break from fringe favourites, the sketch troupe Pappy’s. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see mainstream-ready Adam Hess or Larry Dean take the prize. All in all, though, a good list that encapsulates a good year.
