Comedy award winner Amy Gledhill warns working-classic performers are being 'priced out' of the Fringe

The winner of the biggest comedy award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe has warned that working-class performers are being “priced out” of the event.

Amy Gledhill, who  spoke out after becoming only the sixth solo female performer to win the best prize in its 43-year history, said there was a “really unfair” affordability gap among comedians performing at the event.

The Hull-born stand-up revealed she had worked part-time as a masseuse at the Fringe in the past to ensure she could afford to perform at the festival.

Amy Gledhill won the best show prize at the 2024 Edinburgh Comedy Awards. Picture: Jane Barlow | PA

Gledhill said she was only able to perform this year because she had enjoyed previous success in comedy.

Fellow Yorkshire performer Joe Kent-Walters, from Huddersfield, was named best comedy newcomer, while Merseyside Rob Copland picked up a “spirit of the Fringe” named after the late comedy favourite Victoria Wood.

Amy Gledhill won the best show prize at the 2024 Edinburgh Comedy Awards. Picture Greg Macvean | Greg Macvean Photography

Gledhill said there was an increasing need to arrive at the Fringe with a “business head” as the event had become more of a “corporate machine” since she started performing at the festival.

And she said she had noticed a decline in the number of new comics “giving it a go” this year.

Gledhill had been shortlisted twice previously for the main award, in 2019 and 2022, for the double act The Delightful Sausage that she created with fellow Yorkshire comic Chris Cantrill, who was also shortlisted for the best show prize this year with his solo show.

Gledhill said: “The comedy community is really supportive at the Fringe.

"The tricky thing at the moment is for working-class acts, who are basically priced out of the festival. That’s 100 per cent happening already.

"I’m very fortunate that I can do the Fringe now, but I can only do it because my career has got to a certain point where I can afford to do it. “This year, more than any other year, I feel that there’s less people sort of giving it a go.

"The standard of newcomers and comedy shows at the Fringe is so high now, but I think that’s almost a shame.

"People can’t afford to come to Edinburgh and just work it out or give it a try. They have to come with a business head and be like: ‘These are my outgoings, this is what I could make.’ It’s like a corporate machine in a lot of ways.” Gledhill has appeared in the TV series Alma’s Not Normal, Big Fat Like, Somewhere Boy, The Emily Attack Show, Starstruck and Sex Education in recent years. 

She was nominated as best newcomer with her first full solo show two years ago.

She said: “I couldn’t afford to do the Fringe and not work the first year that I came to Edinburgh with The Delightful Sausage. I had just trained as a masseuse and drove to Edinburgh with my massage bed and all my kit.  ”Performers and members of the public would come to the flat where I was staying for massages. It was so embarrassing when people recognised me, but I had to make money.

“If you are working class or have a lower-income it is almost impossible to do the Fringe. If they are here you know they will be suffering trying to recoup their costs.

"The difference on the playing field between people who can afford the better venues, the better tech and PRs and those who can’t is so vast now it feels really unfair.

"I’m very lucky because my career is doing alright. But if I was starting out now in comedy I don’t think I could do it. That’s really sad.

"It would be such a shame if working-class or regional voices disappeared from the Fringe. If we can get to Edinburgh we know we can do really well.”

Kent-Walters, whose show is inspired by working men’s clubs, said: “I’ve noticed a big difference in the Fringe since I first came here in 2017. It’s got crazy now, really.

"I was paying around £500 just for accommodation for the month. I think the average now is around £2500. I got quite lucky this year, because I’m staying with the friend of a friend. I considered renting a caravan at one point."

Kent-Walters said his show was both a homage and a parody of comedy in working men’s clubs.

He added: “Most of those places have gone now, which is a real shame. They are really few and far between.

“I really wanted to show that, at its core, that whole world had so much love and community at its heart.”