August 26th, 2009 by Peter Bevan

The nominations for the Edinburgh Comedy Awards have been announced today. The Edinburgh Comedy Awards is the industry’s equivalent to the Oscars, and comes as the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2009, the largest arts festival in the world, is finally coming to an end on August 31 having begun around three weeks ago.

However, there is noticeably a lack of females represented this year in the six Best Comedy Show nominations and the five Best Newcomer nominations.

Nica Burns, the founder and producer of the awards, said that she was personally disappointed that no females were shortlisted in the categories but still believed that the list of nominations reflected a year of highly creative and original comedy. Tim Arthur, the comedy editor of Time Out magazine, heads the panel of judges.

Nominated for Best Comedy Show include John Bishop with Elvis Has Left the Building, Russell Kane with Human Dressage, and Tom Wrigglesworth with Open Letter to Richard Branson. The others are Idiots of Ants, Jon Richardson and Tim Key.

Nominated for Best Newcomer are Carl Donnelly, Jack Whitehall, Johnny Sweet, Kevin Bridges, and Pete Johansson.

The winner of Best Comedy Show wins a cheque for £8,000 and the winner of Best Newcomer wins a cheque for £4,000. Winners will be announced on August 29 and the following two days (the final two days of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe) will showcase the winners and nominees in two award shows.

The show on August 30 will be at the Edinburgh Pleasance and the show on August 31 will be at the Edinburgh Assembly.

Comedy fans can catch some of these Edinburgh Comedy Awards nominees in action. John Bishop tickets, Russell Kane tickets and Tom Wrigglesworth tickets are all available to compare and buy at tixdaq.com

Also, there are still some top comedians left to take the stage at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2009, many of them also going on a UK tour.

Alistair McGowan will be at the London Blackheath Halls on October 10 as well as the Leicester Athena Theatre (October 15), Salford Lowry Centre (November 8), Birmingham Hippodrome (November 15) and the Wolverhampton Wulfrun Hall (December 13).

Marcus Bridgstocke will be at the Newcastle Journal Tyne Theatre on November 25 as well as having two dates at the Salford Lowry Centre (December 18 & 19).

Rich Hall will be at the London HMV Apollo on September 25 and the Leicester Athena Theatre on October 27.

Frank Skinner will perform a total of ten dates at the London Shaftesbury Lyric Theatre from October 12 until December 14.

Al Murray will be all over the UK starting at the Sheffield City Hall on October 3 before drawing his UK tour to a close at the Ipswich Regent Theatre on November 29.

Simon Amstell will be performing his Do Nothing tour starting from the Richmond Theatre on October 4 before drawing the tour to a close with three dates at the London O2 Shepherds Bush Empire (November 15, 16 & 17).

Hundreds of Alistair McGowan tickets, Marcus Bridgstocke tickets, Rich Hall tickets, Frank Skinner tickets, Al Murray tickets and Simon Amstell tickets are all available to compare at tixdaq.com, as well as thousands of other comedy tickets.