According to the comedy industry website Chortle, the gloriously eccentric Japanese group Frank Chickens are likely to be named the best comedy show to have performed at the Edinburgh Fringe in the last 30 years. This has transpired because comedian Stewart Lee complained about a misguided attempt by Fosters, new sponsors of what used to be the Perrier Awards, to get some cheap publicity and pretend they'd been sponsoring the prize for 30 years. (This is their first year.)
As a further result of this misguided publicity stunt by Fosters, I have now nominated Stewart Lee for this year's Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award for best publicity stunt at the Fringe - in this case, for publicising a non-existent show not playing the Edinburgh Fringe. I feel Malcolm would have approved both of Stewart's original complaint and the nomination.
Frankly, so far, it looks like a pretty slim year for publicity stunts and currently Stewart stands a pretty good chance of winning.
The Malcolm Hardee Awards this year are going to be presented on Friday 27th August during Nik Coppin's nightly show Shaggers, part of the Laughing Horse Free Festival at the Three Sisters in Cowgate.
Any opinions expressed above do not represent the view of Whatsonstage.com nor any of its staff or contributors beyond the bylined author.
John Fleming is staging three Fringe shows: Helen Keen's It Is Rocket Science! V2 (Gilded Balloon), Keen & Khan: Starstruck! (Voodoo Rooms) & Free Until Famous with Lewis Schaffer (Counting House). He sponsors three annual Malcolm Hardee Awards - announced during the Shaggers! show at The Three Sisters on 27th August. He co-wrote Malcolm Hardee's autobiography I Stole Freddie Mercury's Birthday Cake, edited Janey Godley's autobiography Handstands in the Dark and Sit-Down Comedy, an anthology by 19 stand-ups. He is consultant for two off-Broadway theatres in New York and financed cross-dressing cage-fighter Alex Reid's controversial feature film debut, Killer Bitch. www.thejohnfleming.com
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