Fringe Awards Recognise OJ & Gay Chekhov

The first 1998 Fringe First Awards were presented this weekend to five shows premiered at this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Subject matter of the award-winning shows include OJ Simpson, a gay take on Chekhov's The Three Sisters, food obsessions, water obsession and the life of an obituarist.

The Fringe First Awards, presented by The Scotsman newspaper in conjunction with the Fringe Society, are the festival's most prestigious recognition for drama. They were established in 1973 when there was concern that the Fringe was not attracting the right quantity and quality of shows. The awards are announced weekly during the festival. There is no fixed number given and the only requirement for consideration is that the work must be new - having had no fewer than six performances in the UK, prior to the Fringe. This year, 75 per cent of theatre shows on the Fringe are eligible.

This week's winners are: OJ/Othello, a melding of the OJ Simpson trial with the Shakespeare classic; Gargantua, a site-specific piece from Grid Iron which explores the pleasures of eating and the comedy of bodily functions; Moscow, a surreal piece about three gay men trapped in a deserted theatre who search for enlightenment via a musicalised version of The Three Sisters; The Last Obit, a one-woman show about an obituarist about to be made redundant; and The Water Carriers, in which a small Indian Ocean island community waits tensely for the rains to come.

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