{"id":599727,"date":"2026-08-29T14:42:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T14:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/599727\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T14:42:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T14:42:10","slug":"fourth-time-lucky-as-chris-cantrills-spoof-whodunnit-wins-edinburgh-comedy-award-2026-edinburgh-festival-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/599727\/","title":{"rendered":"Fourth time lucky as Chris Cantrill\u2019s spoof whodunnit wins Edinburgh comedy award 2026 | Edinburgh festival 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

The annual Edinburgh comedy award has been won by the standup Chris Cantrill, two years after his comedy partner Amy Gledhill \u2013 in the raucous northern double act The Delightful Sausage<\/a> \u2013 won the same prize.<\/p>\n

Cantrill, 42 and from Bradford, received the so-called \u201cOscar of live comedy\u201d for a show, Rewilding<\/a>, about his new life in rural Northumberland, where an act of vandalism shocks the local community \u2013 and a spoof whodunnit ensues. It builds on the foundations laid in 2024 by Easily Swayed<\/a>, which documented his move to the countryside and secured what was then Cantrill\u2019s third nomination (but first as a solo act) for the award.<\/p>\n

Like Gledhill, Cantrill is an uproarious, fun-loving and relatable act with palpable mainstream potential, and his victory comes against the grain of an awards shortlist<\/a> that (in both the best show and best newcomer categories) trended leftfield. The oddballs are represented among this year\u2019s winners by Marty Gleeson, who has received the best newcomer gong with her show Dog Ear<\/a>. This eccentric set is inspired by Gleeson\u2019s experiences at art school in her native Limerick, and \u2013 with its live bodhr\u00e1n accompaniment and setpiece that requires shaking the hand of every single audience member \u2013 marches entirely to the beat of its own drum.<\/p>\n

Marching to the beat of her own drum \u2026 Marty Gleeson. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

For my money, I didn\u2019t have either winner down as frontrunner for the prize, which is famously a star-maker in British comedy. Previous winners of the main award, initiated in 1981, include Steve Coogan, Frank Skinner and Bridget Christie, and of the best newcomer gong (introduced in 1992) Harry Hill and Sarah Millican. I had the Mexican-American comic Lara Ricote<\/a> and the London-based, Chinese-born standup Li Jin Hao<\/a> as the acts most likely on this year\u2019s list, and still marvel that the buzziest comedy shows on the fringe (by Elf Lyons<\/a>, the sketch group Crybabies<\/a> and the Australian clown Conk<\/a>) weren\u2019t even nominated.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m delighted to see Cantrill\u2019s rambunctious comedy rewarded, after years of delivering big laughs to fringe audiences. And I\u2019m excited by Gleeson\u2019s arrival on the scene, and to see what she\u2019ll do next. This year\u2019s panel prize, meanwhile, which rewards initiatives that best sum up \u201cthe spirit of the fringe\u201d, was won by One Joke<\/a>, a new event asking \u201chow many comedians can tell one joke each, in an hour?\u201d Produced by Liebenspiel, compered by Jonathan Oldfield, and headlined by the comic Lorna Rose Treen, it featured contributions by 60 comedians, and raised money for charity.<\/p>\n

The organisers of the Edinburgh comedy award (formerly known as the Perrier), theatre producer Nica Burns<\/a> and its new executive director Emma Br\u00fcnjes, said that \u201cin Chris and Marty we have two outstanding winners: both are exceptional comedians, writers and performers who have crafted wonderful shows\u201d. The winners were selected from more than 550 eligible shows at a festival claiming, yet again, to be bigger than ever, with just over 4,200 registered shows across 299 venues. Whether the attendances were bigger than \u2013 or as big as \u2013 ever remains to be seen. (The sense on the ground was: perhaps not.) As winner of the best show prize, Cantrill walks off with \u00a310,000; best newcomer Gleeson wins \u00a35,000. BBC Radio 4 will tonight broadcast a special showcase featuring nominees for the two awards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The annual Edinburgh comedy award has been won by the standup Chris Cantrill, two years after his comedy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":599728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,85,46],"class_list":["post-599727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}