Fringe recognizes its finest
TO THE VICTORS GO THE SPOILS
From the seas of exceptional talent and unmitigated enthusiasm on display during the 2009 Fringe Festival rose an exceptional few that deserved more than our applause and adoration.
Here are the next big things, those acts that titillated, tantalized, rhymed, reasoned, broke down walls and invited us in on precious secrets. For this they have been awarded the highest accolades of this year’s Festival.
Performance poet and stand-up comedian Tim Key has won the Edinburgh Comedy Awards at the 2009 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Presented by funnyman Frank Skinner, who won Best Comedy Show at the festival in 1991, the show was recognized as Best Comedy Show from a selection of 400 other acts at the festival. As well as winning the £8,000 prize, Key has been invited to perform at the Montreal, Toronto and Chicago Just for Laughs comedy festivals.
Jonny Sweet, who is soon to appear as a young David Cameron in a docudrama on TV channel More4, won the Best Newcomer Award for his show Mostly About Arthur. Sweet was presented with a £4,000 cash prize. Peter Buckley Hill also won £4,000 after collecting the panel prize for the Free Fringe.
To the elation of the cast at an awards ceremony in the Assembly Rooms the winner of the Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award was revealed to be ‘Little Gem’ written by Elaine Murphy and directed by Paul Meade. The play was produced by Gúna Nua Theatre Company and the Civic Theatre with support from Culture Ireland.
Birmingham University’s Ophelia Drowning won immediate acclaim for the production’s astounding visuals. Site-specific work ranged Mark Watson’s Fringe First winning The Hotel and Internal, (Ontroerend Goed and Richard Jordan Productions) to The Bitter Belief of Cotrone The Magician which took place on Inchcolm Island in the Firth of Forth. Heroin(e) for Breakfast from The Underbelly will be performed in Australia having won the coveted Holden Street Theatre Award.
Universal Arts, The Arches at St Stephens, The Invisible Dot and Fuel Productions all won acclaim for their Fringe venues and programming, with accolades including Scotsman Fringe Firsts and Herald Angels.
The Edinburgh International Festival Fringe Prize 2009 was awarded this year to three of the most innovative theatre makers appearing at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2009, the award takes the form of an invitation to present a work in progress as part of the Edinburgh International Festival’s Behind the Scenes programme in 2010.
With their gothic puppet play, Lilly Through the Dark, The River People successfully conjured a theatrical world infused with myth and fairytale, which appealed to both adults and children. If That's All There Is, devised by the award winning Inspector Sands theatre company, presented a blistering comedy drama about a couple on the brink of marriage.
Glasgow based playwright and director David Leddy, a leading specialist in site specific theatre in Scotland was awarded a Scotsman Fringe First 2009 for White Tea and Susurrus, which are presented as a double bill at Assembly Rooms. His production of White Tea, set in a tiny Japanese tearoom, invites its audience to wear paper kimonos and drink tea during the performance which combines live storytelling with video and photographic projections.
The winners of the Edinburgh Fringe Musical Awards have also been announced, with Cynthia Hopkins' Accidental Nostalgia at the Traverse winning Best Musical Production. Christopher Hamilton picked up Best Music for Over the Threshold at George Square, and Rob Castell and Tom Sadler won Best Lyrics for Barbershopera II - In the Mane of the Father at the Pleasance while Ed The Musical picking up Best Book and Most Promising New Musical.
Three discretionary awards were presented, to Been So Long for its outstanding music, to The Great British Soap Opera for the impressive progress made by Pippa Cleary and Take Note Theatre, and to MC Dizraeli for his performance in The Rebel Cell.
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