Silence golden for comedians at the Fringe as Dr Brown wins Comedy Award

American improvisational mime Dr Brown won the Foster’s Edinburgh Comedy Award yesterday while New Zealander Sam Wills, aka The Boy With Tape On His Face, was given the panel prize.

The awards had an international flavour this year with the Best Newcomer prize going to London-based Norwegian stand-up Daniel Simonsen.

Producer Nica Burns said: “It has been a sensational year. Here in the middle of a big stand-up boom we have two shows that are totally without words.”

Wearing a hat decorated with flowers, a Hawaiian shirt and flip-flops Dr Brown said: “I’m really happy.”

He said coming to the Fringe had been what inspired him to develop his own particular comic style. “This has been a great festival and good fun and hopefully that spirit and that fun is going to go everywhere.”

Simonsen thanked therapist Kjell Standal, whom he said had helped him when he was a troubled teenager growing up in Norway.

Wills said that although both he and Dr Brown were silent they were very different. “We get compared all the time – but what he does is much more spontaneous and playful – whereas my show is much more scripted.”

Will met his wife, cabaret performer Lili La Scala, at the Fringe and first came to Edinburgh five years ago as a street performer. The panel prize was given to him in recognition of the originality of his act, in which he uses members of the audience to tell stories.

The awards were announced at a lunchtime ceremony at the Dovecot Studios in Infirmary Street and were presented by last year’s winner Adam Riches and Suggs, lead singer of Madness.

Suggs, on his first visit to the Fringe, said: “What an magnificent occasion it has been. I may be a newcomer but I am full of admiration for the people and all the effort involved in putting on all these shows.”

Also nominated for the main award were Canadian absurdist Tony Law, sketch troupe Pappy’s and stand-up James Acaster. Claudia O’Doherty and Josie Long were also nominated – Long for the third time.

The other newcomers on the shortlist were David Trent, Joe Lycett, Sam Fletcher, who was playing at the Free Fringe, and Discover Ben Target, whose show involved audience volleyball and a game of hunt the stick.

Pappy’s had been tipped for the main award and many hoped Long would finally make it, but Dr Brown was a popular choice with critics and audiences.

Comedy writer and judge Bruce Dessau said Dr Brown’s show Befrdfgth was “the most fearless, full-impact festival appearance I have seen in recent years”.

“He initially seems to be essaying random mimes. Something biblical, something vulgar, something violent. Yet gradually a narrative forms and when an audience member gets involved the fun hits top gear.”

Simonsen said he was “bewildered” after receiving the award. He said being from Norway gave him a slightly different perspective.

“I try to speak about stuff that is universal but maybe I am coming from a slightly different place,” he said.

Both he and Dr Brown studied physical theatre at Ecole Philippe Gaulier, the renowned school of clowning in Paris where Sacha Baron Cohen and Emma Thompson also trained.

Ben Williams, writing in Time Out, said: “It’s this offbeat, deadpan awkwardness that makes this young Norwegian comic stand out.

“Simonsen is refreshingly low-key, with a pokerfaced, nonchalant delivery and ‘alienated outsider’ perspective, giving each story a quirky angle.”

The Fosters Comedy Awards may be the biggest – with a prize of £10,000 – but this weekend also saw the announcement of the increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Awards. The award for comic originality went to the Irish surreal hip hop merchants the Rubberbandits, while the prize for best publicity stunt was awarded to Stuart Goldsmith for his show Pr!ck, which had its title amended by the Fringe Society.