Just a few days ago I was lamenting a weak theatre programme to this year´s Ednburgh Fringe in this blog. Now three of this year´s ten Perrier Award judges have broken rank (in a news story reported in today´s Sunday Telegraph) ahead of today´s announcement of the shortlist for the Oscars of the Comedy scene to say that it´s been a bad year for comedy, too. According to John Pidgeon, head of enteratinment at BBC Radio and Chairman of the Perrier panel, “No one show has leapt out as head and shoulders above the rest. I would describe it as an open year.”
Fellow judge Graham Smith, commissioning editor for comedy for Channel 5, has called this year´s comedy “a bit flat”, and compared the situation to when he was last a Perrier judge two years ago. “You could say there was a surfeit of rich comedy that year. The winner was Daniel Kitson and — just to illustrate how strong it was — Jimmy Carr came second. Any other year, the runners-up would have been winners.”
And Ruby Kurachie, editor of factual entertainment at Channel 4, while admitting “As I´m one of the last to arrive in Edinburgh, I haven´t seen any of the really low stuff, so it could be a lot worse,” added, “That said, I´ve seen a couple of things that are really crap and a lot that is very in the middle. I´ve yet to see anything outstanding. I have also seen some soul-destroying shows — shows where you think, I will never get those hours of my life back.”
