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It’s August, so that can only mean one thing! “The new football season?” “The Olympics?” “Rain?” Well, ok, we guess that August can mean more than one thing, but what we’re interested in (as well as the new football season, the Olympics and, um, rain) is the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the if.comedy Awards. The awards have existed now for nigh on 28 years (albeit under different sponsorship – you may be more familiar with the Perrier Awards moniker) and almost unwaveringly never fail to shoot a comedy star into the stratosphere of mainstream consciousness. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule. What with team Channel 4 Online Comedy being such young, hip, gunslingers we’re not completely aware of the, undoubtedly exceptional, work of every award winner (Lano & Woodley, Los Trios Ringbarkus anyone?), but on the whole most award holders go onto greater things (The League of Gentlemen, Steve Coogan, Lee Evans to name but a few).
The winners of the if.comedy Awards will be announced at midnight on Saturday 23rd August and in the build-up we’ll be taking a look at this century’s victors from the Best Comedy Show category. So take our hands as we go back in time to the hazy days of a new millennium…
Rich Hall is Otis Lee Crenshaw (2000)
It was somewhat ironic that in a year that was supposed to be the dawning of a new age - where we should have all been flying around on hoverboards, dressed in BacoFoil, and shooting one another with rayguns – Rich Hall, one of the elderly-statesmen of the Fringe who’s been plying his trade since the 1980s, took the prestigious Perrier title. The reward came after a long slog which has seen the Emmy award-winning comic appear on Saturday Night Live, the Late Show with David Letterman, and Late Night with Conan O’Brien and amongst a plethora of UK based panel shows.
Getting Rich the attention he so deserved was his singer-songwriter, bourbon-soaked jailbird creation Otis Lee Crenshaw. After a series of virtuoso performances rooted in the familiar country music theme of broken marriages, Otis took Edinburgh by storm. Since this success, Rich has rivalled the likes of Sean Lock in appearing in possibly every panel show ever invented, while also forging a niche for himself on BBC Four and continuing to take shows and plays to the Fringe.
Garth Marenghi’s Netherhead (2001)
2000’s shortlist nominees from Garth Marenghi were not deterred by their failure to win Best Comedy Show with Fright Knight, oh no! They came back in 2001 with Netherhead and wowed the Edinburgh crowds with their low-budget comedy horror majesty Netherhead to win a Perrier. In the run-up to the Awards announcement, the show, built around spoof writer character Garth Marenghi, caused a bit of a stir when the comics behind Marenghi refused to speak out of character to the press. The Netherhead cast, having seemingly come from nowhere, caused much consternation and debate amongst media types about the whereabouts of their origin.
Following their Edinburgh triumph it wasn’t long before the names of team Garth Marenghi seeped into minds of students nationwide, as the show was adapted for Channel 4 and became a cult sensation. Richard Ayoade (Dean Learner) has since reprised his role as Garth Marenghi’s publisher Dean Lerner for 2006’s Channel 4 six-part series Man To Man With Dean Learner”, in which Matthew Holness (Garth Marenghi) also starred as a different guest in each episode.
Demetri Martin – If I (2003)
Now, we’d like to think that we’ve got a fairly good memory and a fairly good grasp of comedy (what with us being a comedy website and all, we’re sure you’d like to think that too), but when we realised Demetri Martin won the Perrier in 2003 we collectively drawled, “Who!?” But don’t fear! We’ve done our research and discovered that in actual fact Demetri’s probably one of the most successful Award winners to have existed ever. This is true. Demetri, a Greek-American chap, worked his way up that perilous comedy ladder before finding himself on Comedy Central’s stand-up showcase Premium Blend. Then, by examining his childhood fixation with puzzle books and wordplay, he produced the spell-bounding show ‘If I’.
Not one to rest on his laurels, Demetri has gone on to contribute to The Daily Show for a segment called ‘Trendspotting’. Demetri has somehow also, rather unfortunately depending on how you view the Scot plod-indie boys, directed and starred in a video for a Travis song (‘Selfish Jean’ in case you’re wondering). Don’t fret though, he’s not ruined his career just yet because he’s set to make a fair bit of moolah after selling a movie concept to DreamWorks (look out for Rock On, a musical-comedy-romance coming to the silver screen in the near future). Not only are Demetri’s ideas set to the hit the cinema, but so is his face! This year he’ll be starring in Kids In America and next year he’ll be in Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock. Demetri will also make a return to Comedy Central for his very own show. Didn’t he do well!?
Watch out for part two next week!
