The Edinburgh Comedy Award has launched some of the biggest names in British comedy, turning Fringe unknowns into household names over the past four decades. Formerly known as the Perrier Comedy Award, the prize has become one of the most coveted in the business, and looking back at its winners reads like a who’s who of comedy royalty.
The award has been running since 1981, born out of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world’s largest arts festival held every August in the Scottish capital. What started as a relatively low-key recognition has grown into a genuine career-maker, with winners going on to dominate television, film and stand-up stages across the globe.
Steve Coogan picked up the prize back in 1992, not long before he unleashed Alan Partridge on an unsuspecting British public. At the time he was performing as part of a double act, but it was clear even then that something special was brewing. The rest, as they say, is history.
Frank Skinner won the award in 1991 and went on to become one of the most recognisable faces on British television throughout the 1990s, co-creating Fantasy Football League and later hosting his own chat show. Lee Evans took the prize in 1993 and built a career as one of the UK’s most successful live comedians, selling out arenas with his manic physical style.
Dylan Moran, the Irish comic behind the beloved sitcom Black Books, won in 1996, while his co-star Bill Bailey claimed the prize the same year as part of the Perrier Panel Award. Both went on to become genuine cult figures in British comedy.
Daniel Kitson is one of the more unusual entries on the list. He won in 2002 and is widely regarded as one of the finest stand-ups of his generation, yet he has famously avoided television and mainstream exposure, preferring to keep his work intimate and largely off the record. He remains something of a legend on the comedy circuit precisely because of that.
Tim Minchin, the Australian musician and comedian, won the panel award in 2005 and has since gone on to write the music and lyrics for the globally successful Matilda the Musical, among other major theatrical productions.
More recently, the award has continued to spot talent early. Richard Gadd won the main prize in 2016 with his show Monkey See Monkey Do, a raw and physically demanding piece of theatre that hinted at the deeply personal storytelling he would later bring to Baby Reindeer. That Netflix series became a global phenomenon in 2024, sparking huge conversations about stalking, trauma and the nature of truth, and suddenly everyone wanted to know more about the Edinburgh show that started it all.
Gadd’s win is perhaps the clearest recent example of what the award can do. He was not a household name when he collected the prize on the Royal Mile. Within a few years, he was.
The award has not been without its controversies over the years. There have been debates about who gets nominated, whether certain styles of comedy are favoured over others, and whether the increasing commercialisation of the Fringe itself affects who gets seen and who gets overlooked. Some brilliant performers have never won it. Some winners have faded from view. But the hits far outnumber the misses.
What makes Edinburgh such a unique place for comedy is the sheer concentration of talent in one city for one month every year. Comedians perform multiple shows a day, critics roam the venues, and word of mouth can make or break a career in the space of a week. Winning the main award in that environment means something.
The prize is now sponsored by Dave, the television channel, and officially called the Edinburgh Comedy Award, but plenty of people still refer to it by its original Perrier name out of habit. Whatever you call it, its track record speaks for itself.
With the Fringe returning each summer, the next generation of potential winners is already out there, working on the shows that might just change their lives. If history is anything to go by, a few of them will end up on a list like this one before too long.