Stand-up Barry Ferns calls for an overhaul of Edinburgh accolades to recognise a two-tier Fringe

A Fringe stalwart has called for the Edinburgh Comedy Award to be split in two: one for comedians who have industry backing and one for those going it alone.

Comic Barry Ferns says the move would level the playing field between those afforded the time to focus fully on the creation and performance of their show and those who also have to carry the burden of all the admin and promotion  involved in coming to the festival.

He has written an open letter to awards producer Nica Burns, suggesting the move could happen as quickly as this year – even though we are only one week away from the shortlists for best show and best newcomer being announced.

Ferns said the move would recognise the ‘vast disparity in resources and opportunity that currently goes unspoken’.

He said it was ‘almost absurd’ to compare comics doing it all themselves with those receiving professional support, adding that having two-track awards ‘would send a powerful message to the next generation of comedians: that brilliance doesn’t need backing, and that effort matters’.

Ferns, who is also a founder of The Bill Murray and Angel Comedy  Club in London, speaks about how he has been bankrupted and made homeless through debt incurred at the Fringe in his festival show this year.

Chortle has approached the Edinburgh Comedy Awards for a response.

An Open Letter to the Edinburgh Comedy Awards

Dear Nica Burns, Edinburgh Comedy Awards producers and panel,

Every August, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe becomes a proving ground for thousands of comedians - a glorious, chaotic marathon of ambition, creativity and sheer survival.  And at the finish line, your awards stand as the ultimate recognition: a benchmark of excellence in comedy.

But I believe we need to ask a vital question about fairness: not in the content of the shows, but in the conditions under which those shows are created.

Right now, there is no meaningful distinction between acts with full professional backing and those who have produced their show entirely alone. And yet the difference between these two realities is so vast, it's almost absurd to compare the finished results on the same terms.

To put it simply: Both sets of acts put hours and hours into making sure they are match-fit, and their shows are as strong as they can be. But one of these two acts is chauffeured to the start line, fresh and focused. The other has had to run to the stadium just to be allowed to compete – and when they finally get there, they discover it’s not the 100m sprint everyone else is running, but the hurdles, and they’re still expected to be just as fast. 

They’ve been flyering their own path through the city in the rain, sorting their own press releases, funding the whole thing from savings or debt without the hope of selling enough tickets to recoup it even if they sell out, designing their own posters, finding and managing their own flyerers, booking their own venue, and often collapsing into bed each night too tired to rework a joke, let alone pitch to a journalist.

Both now stand on the same start line. But only one has the energy to sprint.

I believe it is time to introduce two main awards at the Fringe:

1. One for acts with professional support (either management, an external producer, or external funding)

2. One for acts who have entirely self-produced their show (doing the admin, the promotion, the strategy and the legwork entirely on their own)

This is not about handing out prizes for hardship. It’s about recognising the vast disparity in resources and opportunity that currently goes unspoken – but shows up clearly in the final polish of each production. 

When your panel or reviewers say one act had ‘sharper writing’, ‘clearer ideas’, ‘more nuanced narrative’, they are often praising privilege. Because one performer had the time and support to focus fully on the art. The other had to do everything else besides.

This isn’t hypothetical. The Fringe is full of extraordinary comedians with no safety net. They flyer for hours in the morning and perform to half-full rooms in the evening. They are creating brilliant work under enormous pressure, often with zero guidance. And yet they are judged by the same criteria as acts whose biggest concern is the running order and checking whether they have reviewers in that day.

Yes, the final product matters. But so does the road it took to get there. And if the awards don’t account for that, then the odds will always favour those with support, access, or funding – the ones who didn’t have to run to the racetrack.

The question to work out the two awards is simple: Did they produce their own show? Did they flyer for it themselves? If not, they are in a different category. And the awards should reflect that.

Yes it’s faffy, though it should be relatively transparent if someone has an agent, or funding or management, but you are the only organisation, the only awards big enough to make those awards, that recognition, meaningful.

 Introducing two main awards would not dilute the value of recognition – it would deepen it. It would celebrate not just excellence, but also resilience, resourcefulness and equity. It would send a powerful message to the next generation of comedians: that brilliance doesn’t need backing, and that effort matters.

In theory this award could take the place (or be named the same) as ‘the spirit of the Fringe or Panel Prize [Now known as the Victoria Wood Award]. There has always been some movability with the panel prrize  each year - why not cement it under this category - and give it joint-standing with the Newcomer and [Best Show]  Awards?

This could literally happen this year. Because increasingly, even the ability to turn up here is becoming a reserve of those who have the support, safety net, funds or luck to have the scaffolding around them. 

Let’s give the people without support, but with belief, commitment, and resilient creativity a hope for industry recognition too.

Yours sincerely,
Barry Ferns

Published: 12 Aug 2025