We have a stellar panel of judges lined up for this year’s final of the Funny Women Awards on Monday 26th September. This is one of the biggest comedy events of the year and not only is this reflected in the talent we showcase, we honour this by inviting some of the influential people from management, broadcasting, media and the arts to judge.
Given that television is a goal for many performers trying to make their way in comedy, we have recruited the many skills of journalist and TV presenter, Kate Garraway, to the panel.
Kate is currently the entertainment editor of Daybreak on ITV1 and has been busy setting up her new business, celebrity discount website goodypass.com, which offers discounts of 50-90% off local salons, restaurants, days out and amazing national offers.
No stranger to performing herself, Kate began her broadcasting career on BBC Radio Oxford, and has presented various news programmes from Meridian Tonight to BBC News 24, as well as a range of other programmes including The Biggest Loser. In 1998, she anchored for Sunrise, and joined GMTV in 2000 as a presenter, later promoted to lead anchor. No stranger to the art of comedy, Kate has tried her hand at stand up and is looking forward to helping us in our quest to find some of the freshest new talent for the future.
We are delighted to have Lucy Ansbro back on our panel again this year. Lucy has worked at Phil Mcintyre Entertainment for nearly 14 years and is the agent for Ben Elton, Victoria Wood, Peter Kay, John Cleese, Craig Cash, Caroline Aherne and Adrian Edmondson.
As well as looking after some of the biggest names in comedy, Lucy has either produced/associate produced/executive produced a number of television programmes/series; Peter Kay’s Phoenix Nights (C4 – two series), Peter Kay’s Max and Paddy (C4); Craig Cash’s Early Doors (BBC2- two series); two Victoria Wood Christmas Specials and Live From the Albert Hall (BBC1 and ITV1). More recently she has produced Peter Kay’s Britain’s Got the Pop Factor and Possibly a New Celebrity Jesus Christ Soapstar Superstar Strictly on Ice (C4) and was the executive producer of three series of Dave’s One Night Stand (Dave channel) and the series Dynamo: Magician Impossible for Watch.
Balancing out the male/female factor, we welcome the BBC’s arts editor, Will Gompertz, to the panel for the first time. Before joining the BBC in December 2009 Will was a director at the Tate Gallery for seven years, where he was responsible for the award-winning Tate Online, the UK’s most popular art website, and Tate Etc, the UK’s highest circulation art magazine.
Will has worked in the arts since he was 18 years old starting with jobs such as stagehand at Sadlers Wells and setting up a successful visual arts publication at the age of 25. Since then he has written, produced, published and commented on the arts in the UK and internationally. He continues to write for many leading newspapers and publications and even trod the boards at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2009 with his one man show, Double Art History. Will was also voted one of the world's top 50 creative thinkers by New York's Creativity Magazine so will bring brain as well as masculine brawn to our panel!
We’ve been wooing the magazine world over the last few years and a few column inches are now being given over to profiling some of the newest and best new women on the circuit. Louise Court is the editor of leading women’s glossy Cosmopolitan and we are delighted that she has agreed to join our judging panel.
Louise’s long list of credentials prior to joining Cosmo in 2007 include editorial director of ACP-Natmag, overseeing Best, Reveal and Real People, editor of Best magazine for seven years, deputy editor of Prima, deputy editor of Best and assistant editor of Woman’s Own. Louise came into magazines from the Daily Express where she was a show business writer covering news and features, and writing her own column. She has previously worked at the Sunday Express, Daily Mail and Mail On Sunday having trained in local papers in Sussex and Surrey. With that kind of journalistic form we look forward to her review of this year's final!
And finally, in the chair this year is Lucy Lumsden, the first head of comedy for satellite channel Sky 1 since 2009 and a ‘veteran’ of judging the Funny Women Awards – this is her third time.
Formally the BBC's head of comedy commissioning, Lucy was at the corporation for 11 years before moving to Sky1 alongside Stuart Murphy to implement a multi-million pound comedy strategy to work with the nation’s best writers and producers to deliver smart mainstream originated British comedy to Sky.
December 2010 saw the first product of Lucy's strategy – Little Crackers, a series of 12 auto-biographical shorts written by, starring and directed by some the UK's biggest talents including Victoria Wood, Dawn French, Julia Davis, Stephen Fry and Bill Bailey. Catherine Tate's Little Cracker went on to receive a BAFTA nomination.
Lucy is currently developing a mix of half-hour sitcoms and hour-long comedy dramas for Sky's entertainment channels including Stella, a comedy drama created by and starring Ruth Jones; This Is Jinsy, an eccentric comedy written by and starring newcomers Chris Bran and Justin Chubb, and directed by BAFTA® award-winner Matt Lipsey; and Mount Pleasant, a comedy drama from former Shameless scribe Sarah Hooper and Trollied, a sitcom set in a supermarket starring Jane Horrocks and Spy – a new family sitcom starring Darren Boyd and Robert Lindsay.
As the BBC's first controller of comedy commissioning Lucy has developed, commissioned and worked with the very best in British comedy to produce an impressive array of hits across its four channels. This includes the award-winning Outnumbered, Gavin and Stacey, The Catherine Tate Show, Miranda, Lead Balloon, The Trip, Rev, Grandma's House and The Worst Week of My Life.
Many of BBC Three’s early successes were in collaboration with then channel controller Stuart Murphy: Gavin and Stacey, Nighty Night, Pulling, The Mighty Boosh, Ideal and Drop Dead Gorgeous.
Lucy began her career in television in 1992 working at the Comic Strip for BBC Two, then worked across a number of comedies, drama serials and documentaries at the BBC until 1998.
“Being funny is a lot harder than people think," commented Lucy in a recent article in Stylist magazine. We couldn't agree more – it's often forgotten that the people behind the scenes are every bit as important as the performers. This is why we put together such a star-studded and influential judging panel every year.
