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Perrier Comedy Award

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The Perrier Comedy Award is a prestigious award for comedy, awarded to the best comedy show at the Edinburgh Fringe sponsored by the Perrier brand of bottled water.

The prize was initially a week's run at the New End Theatre in Hampstead and a small cheque. Now winners receive £7,500 and a run in London's Theatreland.

In 1995 Perrier was bought by Nestle, whose ambivalent relationship with the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes led to calls to boycott the awards, which are slowly being taken up by fringe venues and performers on an individual basis. In the light of Nestle's ownership of Perrier, former winners Emma Thompson and Steve Coogan have both called for the awards to be scrapped and Rob Newman led a high profile campaign of protest in 2001[1].

Since 1992, there has also been a "Best Newcomer" award.

A list of the beneficiaries since the scheme began in 1981 is as follows...


Note: the 2001 awards were notable for the campaign Baby Milk Action criticising Nestle, owners of the Perrier brand (see above).

External link - Guardian critical round-up of the 2001 shortlist.

Note: the 2002 awards were criticised for being the second consecutive year in which no female acts were shortlisted.

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