The Pleasance Receives Eight Nominations For The Edinburgh Comedy Awards

This afternoon The Edinburgh Comedy Awards announced their thirteen nominees for Best Newcomer and Best Comedy Show including eight of the Pleasance's performers. Among those nominated for Best Newcomer are Ciarán Dowd, Olga Koch, Sarah Keyworth and Sindhu Vee. Best Comedy Show nominees include Alex Edelman, Kieran Hodgson, Rose Matafeo and Felicity Ward.

Head of Comedy, Ryan Taylor says, It's another brilliant year for comedy at the Pleasance and we're thrilled to see so many of our acts nominated - congratulations to them all! Every year at the Pleasance we look to nurture new talent and support them as they develop into household names. With equal recognition in today's nomination for those who are making their debut with us and acts who have been part of the Pleasance family for years, it's a wonderful demonstration of how this support can help harness the very best in comedy.

After receiving a Herald Angel Award for his new show, Alex Edelman's Just for Us has been nominated for The Edinburgh Comedy Awards' Best Comedy Show. Just for Us ricochets through his past year but, at its centre, is an astonishing and unfortunately timely encounter. After a strong anti-Semitic strain of online abuse was directed at Alex, he decided to covertly attend a meeting of those same anti-Semites. The result was an unexpected and revealing confrontation.

Nominated for Best Comedy Show, '75 is Kieran Hodgson's dissertation stand-up hour tackling one of the biggest debates in the United Kingdom at the moment: Europe. Following his hilarious attempts to reconcile his mother and her closest friend after they were driven apart by the referendum, Kieran's masterful storytelling takes us deep into the roots of Brexit, on both a historical and personal level which leaves the audience as informed as they are entertained.

Also nominated is Rose Matafeo: Horndog which sees the New Zealand comic and millennial find humour in everything from break-ups to race to sex drive. Her high-energy hour is unrelenting, painfully relatable and unapologetically fun. With her polished set and equally polished dance moves, Rose's show makes you feel like you're watching your best friend on stage.

After appearing in the Pleasance's Opening Gala, Felicity Ward has burst back on to the Fringe after her two-year hiatus with Busting a Nut which has also been nominated for Best Comedy Show. With real energy and quick-wit, even as she tackles darker and more difficult issues, Felicity is a firecracker on stage: impossible to look away from. The audience are invited to revel with her in the painfully hilarious predicaments she finds herself in.

Nominated for Best Newcomer is character comedian Ciarán Dowd for his solo debut, Don Rodolfo. Total butthead, shameless libertine and incomparable swordsman, Don Rodolfo is the spoof swashbuckler with an uncanny resemblance to Inigo Montoya. A 17th Century Lothario on a mission to avenge his father's death, he still has time to share his top seduction tips and a couple of sugar cubes with the audience.

Receiving one of the first Herald Angels of the Fringe, Sarah Keyworth's semi-autobiographical show, Dark Horse, about discovering her own sexuality and gender identity has today seen her nominated by The Edinburgh Comedy Awards. This refreshingly insightful journey about expectations, gender and self-acceptance makes her debut hour one of the most thought- provoking and entertaining at the Fringe.

Also nominated is Olga Koch with Fight. In 2014, Olga's father got stopped by authorities on the Russian border, which resulted in the most surreal years in her family's life. In her debut hour, she will try to dissect this real-life spy drama with her projector to take audiences on an insider tour through the making of modern Russia, where the political is always personal. Fight is the battle cry for a generation that takes freedom for granted, inspired by a generation that grew up without it.

Born and raised in India with degrees from Delhi, Oxford, McGill and Chicago Universities and even half a PHD, Sindhu Vee completes the Pleasance's nominees with Best Comedy Newcomer for Sandhog. Finally platforming the outrageous and belly-achingly funny transgressions families make in the name of pragmatism, Sindhu Vee takes on the joys of teenage children, the interference of elderly parents and the unenviable position of the sandwich generation caught between them both.

The Edinburgh Comedy Awards in their various incarnations have been celebrating those who make us laugh since 1981. They present both the Best Comedy Show and Best Newcomer Award every year. The prestigious Panel Award is presented, or not, entirely at the discretion of the panel: everyone is eligible, only the exceptional receive it. All the award winners will be announced on Saturday 25 August before the ceremony on Sunday 26 August.

Tickets for all the nominated Pleasance shows are available from www.pleasance.co.uk, , 0131 556 6550 or Pleasance Box Office.

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