Land of the rising pun... Or how the Frank Chickens hit the big time

THEY were an obscure Anglo-Japanese comedy troupe who made a brief ripple at the Fringe more than two decades ago.

• Stewart Lee railed at 'inane' comedy awards

Now the Frank Chickens are set for a triumphant return as part of comedian Stewart Lee's efforts to sabotage a new comedy award.

Lee is staging a final coup in his feud with the Foster's Edinburgh Comedy Awards by bringing the group back to Edinburgh after two decades.

The Frank Chickens, nominated for the awards in 1984, have topped a new high-profile "Comedy Gods" poll, launched by awards boss Nica Burns with the backing of sponsor Foster's.

They have led the poll for the past two weeks, with more than 100,000 votes cast, after Lee ridiculed the award as corporate pandering and suggested they should win.

His mention launched a surge in internet voting and appears to ensure the Frank Chickens will see off the likes of Tim Minchin, Michael McIntyre and a list of household names to claim the title.

Lee has arranged to bring the whole troop to Edinburgh, from Kazuko Hohki, the founder of the off-beat comedy singing group, to those who later joined her, with a total of 16 people on stage at the Festival Theatre.

The one-off event will take place at the gala launch on Wednesday night of Lee's book on how he returned to stand-up after Jerry Springer the Opera went to world-wide acclaim and controversy.

Lee's camp claimed yesterday that Ms Burns planned to delay announcing the embarrassing result until after the festival. Foster's only signed on as sponsor this year.

However, her spokeswoman said: "Voting ends on 25 August and then they will make the announcement. It is going to be announced before the end of the festival, but because people have had so much fun with it, we are going to be a little subversive ourselves. It will be amazing for the Frank Chickens, for their careers."

The announcement of the Foster's "Comedy God" poll, to select the favourite comedian from 25 years of the Edinburgh Comedy Awards, prompted Lee to call them "the most shameful, inane thing" he had seen on the Fringe. It came soon after Foster's was unveiled as the awards' sponsor.

"I didn't even know the Frank Chickens had reformed when I suggested them as an act who might have been overlooked by people voting," he said. "I am delighted they are able to come to Edinburgh to perform for some of the presumably hundreds of thousands of people who have voted for them."

The Frank Chickens were formed when Hohki enlisted two Japanese friends as backing singers for her act, performing epic Hollywood films using wind-up toys.Described as "witty and irreverent Japanese popsters", they played with the image of Japanese identity, from ritual obedience to well-behaved little girls. Their best-known song was We are Ninja (Not Geisha).

They are now mainly London-based, with their own careers, but come together for occasional performances, manager Joanne Crowley said.

Lee approached them with "this wild idea", she said.

"As an artist he is someone we massively respect. We do support his perspective, it's about the broad spectrum of work at the Fringe, and the importance of sponsors supporting that whole section rather than just contemporary names on TV."

Hohki has brought other acts to recent Fringe festivals but the Chickens have not been back for years, she said. "Chickens is a great thing to have for fun, but I didn't think to connect it with anything like a showbusiness thing any more."

Japanese popsters with surreal comic appeal

Kazuko Hohki formed the Frank Chickens as a band in 1982 with two friends, naming it after a bizarre brand of Japanese pencil she found on holiday.

Their first single We Are Ninja in 1982 was followed by We Are Ninja (Not Geisha) in 1984, Blue Canary, Yellow Toast, Do the Karaoke and the We Are Ninja Remix Collection released in 2000. Their debut album We Are Frank Chickens was followed by Get Chickenized.

Critics praised the popsters for challenging cultural stereotypes with "surreal and zany" mixes of music, cabaret, dance routines, bizarre costume changes, and even slides. They were nominated for what were then the Perrier Comedy Awards in 1985 for an Assembly Rooms show. They became a favourite of BBC Radio 1's John Peel, appearing on his show several times. The band's nearly 20 members come together for occassional gigs mostly at the Vauxhall Tavern, London.