Mary McCool
BBC Scotland News
PA Media
Sam Nicoresti won the award for Best Comedy Show at the Edinburgh Fringe
British comedian Sam Nicoresti has become the first transgender person to win the award for Best Comedy Show at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Nicoresti took the accolade for the show Baby Doomer, which explores life as a trans woman.
Ayoade Bamgboye won best newcomer for her show Swings and Roundabouts – making her the first black woman to take the award.
This is the first year the Fringe has scrapped the annual award for funniest joke – a mainstay of the festival for the best part of two decades.
The esteemed but separate Edinburgh Comedy Awards main prize recognises the best performance and routine overall each year.
It launched in 1981 and takes credit for helping establish the careers of modern comedy greats.
This year it also handed its Victoria Wood award – a panel prize for those who “embody the true spirit of the Fringe” – to Comedy Club 4 Kids.
‘Brilliant future’
Nicoresti, from Birmingham, took the award and a prize of £10,000 in a shortlist described as the “stars of tomorrow”.
The Guardian awarded the show Baby Doomer four stars, calling it “an ebullient hour with a sky-high joke count”.
Nicoresti said: “Winning the award sure is swell, I’m super excited and stoked and jazzed. I did this for the queers making weird art, and it’s a privilege to share this moment with the first all female line-up of award winners.”
Meanwhile Bamgboye’s show Swings and Roundabouts, which draws on her move to London from Nigeria, has been described as a “thrilling debut”.
She told BBC News the show was a running commentary on what it means to suffer – a particular suffering “because of the circumstances of your birth and identity”.
Audiences, she said, have come to her shows “wide-eyed” and with “open hearts”.
“The reception has been more and better than I could have dreamed,” she said. “No one is asking you to prove you’re funny, they’re there to have a good time and to listen.
“It’s always important to be doing this craft, throwing my hat into the ring and to be recognised in this way is just the start of something – not just for me but for people who look like me.”
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Nica Burns, director of the Edinburgh Comedy Awards, said the winners capture the spirit of modern comedy – “bold, brilliant, and deeply connected to audiences”.
She said: “Sam Nicoresti’s Baby Doomer is a masterfully woven, polished and delightfully human show that captures an essential moment with, to paraphrase her words, laughs by the seconds.
“Ayoade Bamgboye’s debut hour is electric, constantly keeping you on your toes.
“What begins as an everyday anecdote about the Co-Op unfolds into a rich, often surreal world, layered with profound emotional depth. She delivers it all with remarkable charisma and presence. Ayoade has a brilliant future ahead of her.”
The Edinburgh Comedy Awards is in its 45th year.
Prevous winners include Stephen Fry, Steve Coogan, Lee Evans, Al Murray, Sarah Millican, Omid Djalili, Eddie Izzard, Tim Minchin, The League of Gentlemen, Jenny Eclair and Frank Skinner.