Stewart Lee’s Rant Lends Mass Support to Chickens???

Voting for the Edinburgh Comedy Awards ‘comedy god’ category has been upset by an online campaign, started unwittingly by comedian Stewart Lee. Lee attacked the competition – which, as previously reported (See News, 22 July 2010), allows the public to vote for their ‘comedy god’ from all previous Perrier and Edinburgh Comedy Award nominees – saying that it undermines the independent ‘spirit of the Fringe’ and is a cynical move to associate Fosters with a number of high-profile comedians. Lee proposed that voters back little-known act Frank Chickens, a Japanese female performance art duo. Voters appear to have taken Lee’s suggestion to heart, with the plea having struck a chord with social media users who have swarmed to the website. Nica Burns, organiser of the awards since their creation in 1981, said that of the 80,000 votes cast in the first fortnight of the poll, 20,000 of them were for Frank Chickens. Speaking to the Guardian about their position at the top of the poll, Frank Chickens foudning member Kazuko Hohki said: “I had a phone call telling me I was ahead of Michael McIntyre, and I said, ‘Who?!’ I don’t know anything about stand-up comedy.” She went on: “It’s very funny. I respect the British people’s sense of humour. But it just proves that Stewart Lee is a very popular, powerful person.”