page_title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe
section_title: Awards
hierarchical_section_title: Edinburgh Festival Fringe / Reviews and awards / Awards
caption_attribution_description: Irish actor Gabriel Byrne holding his Herald Angel, an award given to him at the 2006 Edinburgh festival.
context_page_description: The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the world's largest arts festival, which in 2018 spanned 25 days and featured more than 55,000 performances of 3,548 different shows in 317 venues. Established in 1947 as an alternative to the Edinburgh International Festival, it takes place annually in Edinburgh, Scotland, in the month of August. The Edinburgh Festival Fringe has become a world-leading celebration of arts and culture, surpassed only by the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup in terms of global ticketed events. As an event it "has done more to place Edinburgh in the forefront of world cities than anything else".
  It is an open access performing arts festival, meaning there is no selection committee, and anyone may participate, with any type of performance. The official Fringe Programme categorises shows into sections for theatre, comedy, dance, physical theatre, circus, cabaret, children's shows, musicals, opera, music, spoken word, exhibitions and events. Comedy is the largest section, making up over one-third of the programme and the one that in modern times has the highest public profile, due in part to the Edinburgh Comedy Awards.
context_section_description: There are a growing number of awards for Fringe shows, particularly in the field of drama:
  The Scotsman introduced the prestigious Fringe First awards in 1973. These awards were established by Scotsman arts editor Allen Wright to encourage new theatre writing, and are given only to new plays (or new translations), and several are awarded for each of the three weeks of the Fringe – usually by a celebrity at a prestigious ceremony.
  Herald Angels and Archangels are awarded by the team of arts writers of The Herald to performers or shows deemed worthy of recognition. Similar to Fringe Firsts, they are given each week of the Fringe.
  The Stage has awarded the Stage Awards for Acting Excellence since 1995. Around a dozen awards are given out each year, including a Special Award, given for the first time in 2014. Winners of the Special Award to date include Chris Goode (2014) and Pip Utton (2015).
  Total Theatre has presented its Total Theatre Awards for excellence in the field of physical and visual theatre since 1997. The categories under which these awards are given vary from year to year. A notable addition in 2007 was the inclusion of a Wild Card award chosen by the festival-going public.
  Amnesty International introduced the Amnesty Freedom of Expression Award in 2002.
  The Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award for best drama was introduced in 2004. To be eligible for this award a show must have received a four or five star rating in The Scotsman and must not have previously played in New York, as the prize is to put the show on in New York.
  The ThreeWeeks Editors' Awards was introduced in 2005 and are given to the ten things that have most excited the ThreeWeeks editors each year.
  The Bobby was launched by Broadway Baby in 2011 and are given to the best shows of the festival as decided by the Broadway Baby judging panel. In 2012 a second type of Bobby was launched called the Technical Bobby, awarded for technical achievement at the Fringe, such as lighting or set design.
  The Edinburgh Musical Theatre Awards were introduced in 2007 by Musical Theatre Matters, to encourage the writing and production of new musicals on the Fringe.
  The Perrier Awards for Comedy came into existence in 1981 when the award was won by the Cambridge Footlights. (Two further award categories have since been added.) Perrier, the mineral water manufacturer ended its long association in 2006 and was succeeded by the Scottish-based company Intelligent Finance. In 2009 IF also withdrew and could not be replaced so the awards are now temporarily being funded by promoter Nica Burns and rebranded as the Edinburgh Comedy awards, or "Eddies".
  The Malcolm Hardee Awards have three categories - Comic Originality, Cunning Stunt and Act Most Likely To Make A Million Quid They were presented originally for ten years, 2008–2017 and again from 2019, when they were taken over by the British Comedy Guide. An initial one-off Malcolm Hardee Award had been made at the Fringe in 2005, the year of Hardee's death, to American musical comic Reggie Watts.
caption: Gabriel Byrne holding his Herald Angel
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Make": "OLYMPUS OPTICAL CO.,LTD", "Image Model": "u10D,S300D,u300D", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "144", "Image YResolution": "144", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "22-1012", "Image DateTime": "2006:08:19 12:13:41", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "266", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 20, 0, 1, 0, 20, 0, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "7206", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6494", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/40", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "160", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2006:08:19 12:13:41", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2006:08:19 12:13:41", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "163/50", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "1001/100", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2048", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1536", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "722", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}