John wins £12,000 comedy prize

Stand-up John Scott has won the most lucrative prize in comedy – scooping £12,000 in a competition at the Edinburgh Fringe.

The 40-year-old, who has been performing comedy for 11 years, won the Take The Mic contest sponsored by Caledonian Brewery and the Scottish Sun.

More than 700 contestants – who had to have strong links to Scotland – took part in the competition, whose top prize is £2,000 more than the main Foster’s Edinburgh Comedy Award.

Scott, who moved to Bonnyrigg, Midlothian, from his native Newcastle five years ago, said: ‘People think you can just turn up at the Edinburgh Festival, but it's usually the big English comics that take over. It's hard for Scots to get a look in at this time of year. That's why Take The Mic was so good. It gave the home-grown guys a platform.’

‘I'm hoping winning Take The Mic gives me a bit of a break, because I've worked hard for it.’

The Scottish Sun quoted some of Scott’s jokes, including: ‘I come from a family of seven. My dad wasn't a Catholic but he had a really competitive streak and wanted to keep up with our Catholic neighbours’ and ‘Britain could never join the Euro, we'd have to shut down all the pound shops’.

Published: 24 Aug 2010