The final Saturday night at The Festival Club is always a Big night and Max Watts has certainly found ways to squeeze in a hell of a lot more people than Hifi ever did. It was a pretty good line up of performers, with standouts being Geraldine Hickey, Urzila Carlson and Romesh Ranganathan. The low point was having a boring, non-funny stripping hula hooper from Yummy on just before the Awards.
Then around 1am it was time for the Awards Ceremony.
Barry Award – Hannah Gadsby: Nanette
Best Newcomer – Aaron Chen: The Infinite Faces of Chenny Baby
and
Angus Gordon: Sad Boy Comedy Hour
Piece of Wood – Luke Heggie: Rough Diamante
Directors’ Choice – Demi Lardner: Look What You Made Me Do
Vodafone People’s Choice – Judith Lucy & Denise Scott: Disappointments
and
Wil Anderson: Critically Wil
Golden Gibbo – Granny Bingo: A Visit With Nan In A Caravan
Pinder Prize – Damien Power: Utopia: Now in 3D!
Funny Tonne – Will Erskine – He saw 154 shows in 24 days