The Edinburgh comedy award, the annual “Oscar of comedy” given to the best show at the fringe, has been won by Sam Nicoresti for Baby Doomer, which is based around a humiliating experience in a department store changing room.
The Birmingham standup becomes the first transgender winner of the prestigious award after near-misses for Jordan Gray in 2022 – and Eddie Izzard 34 years ago. Nicoresti pockets £10,000 in prize money and, on accepting the award, joked they had promised their partner the win a year ago to help pay for their upcoming wedding.
At a ceremony hosted very amusingly by last year’s winner Amy Gledhill, the best newcomer prize, worth £5,000, was won by Ayoade Bamgboye, for the show Swings and Roundabouts. The Londoner, who was raised in Nigeria, was in tears on receiving the award, which has in the past launched the careers of acts including Sarah Millican, Harry Hill and The Mighty Boosh. The Victoria Wood award, presented to those who “embody the true spirit of the fringe”, went to Comedy Club 4 Kids, which runs children’s standup shows and workshops, on its 20th anniversary.
The director of the comedy awards, the West End theatre producer Nica Burns, said: “Our 2025 winners capture the spirit of comedy right now: bold, brilliant and deeply connected to audiences. In different ways, they’ve each created shows that feel utterly of this moment, sparking laughter while saying something lasting. Together, they remind us why the fringe matters, a place where the freshest voices can shine.”
Traditionally rounding off the three-plus-week festival, the ceremony took place at noon on Saturday before an audience of comics and industry figures. Stepping into a lineage of irreverent co-hosts of the award, the former winners Adam Riches and John Kearns appeared in character as crooners Ball and Boe, delivering edgy gags – as Gledhill did – about the fringe’s ambivalent relationship with Scottish comedy and the residents of Edinburgh.
Give or take the leagues-ahead quality of the former best newcomer Cat Cohen’s show Broad Strokes, mystifyingly not represented on the shortlist (and attended last night by Tina Fey), Nicoresti’s victory was well earned. Pivoting this year to high-joke-count standup after finding early success with more leftfield work (they are a prominent member of a comedy collective called Weirdos), their show addresses life as a trans woman in a spirit of joy, playfulness and self-irony that could clearly capture the hearts of mainstream audiences.
I welcome their win – although I’d have been equally happy to see another star-in-the-making John Tothill rewarded. After brushes with malaria and appendicitis in recent years (as recounted in this year’s show), Tothill must content himself with at least having completed his first fringe run not to result in a near-death experience.
A nomination for the queer Canadian performance art/comedy duo the Creepy Boys, with their show Slugs, ensured welcome representation at comedy’s top table for the fringiest of fringe work. Bamgboye’s win was incontrovertible: sharp, commanding and with star quality in spades, she’s going places. Hopefully one of those places will be next year’s fringe. The festival continues to be the most electrifying destination in live comedy.
Figures to be released in the coming weeks will demonstrate how the event has fared commercially in tough times for the performing arts. But, as the comedy awards again proved, for new talent, wild creativity and big laughs – and for practitioners and audience both – the Edinburgh fringe remains the most thrilling place to be.