Last night we streamed our live 2020 Funny Women Awards Presentation from the Groucho Club, London. Hosted by 2019 Funny Women Awards winner Laura Smyth, faces from the comedy industry Zoomed in to announce the winners of the Comedy Writing, Comedy Shorts, Comedy Web Series and Best Comedy Writer with Comedy 50:50 Industry Award.
First up Dear Joan and Jericha legend Vicki Pepperdine joined us to announce the winner of the 2020 Funny Women Comedy Writing Award, Kate Elmer with her script Mulch Wanted. Comedy Writing Award head judge Vicki said: “Huge congratulations to all three finalists, this was a very hard one to call! I loved the idea of this wannabe Thelma and Louise for our times, with its great ‘out there’ characters and the many razor-sharp one-liners that Kate has thrown in… Well done Kate!”
BBC Comedy Commissioner Sarah Asante introduced one of our newer categories, Comedy Web Series, which received over 3500 submissions. This is voted for by you, the public and last year’s winner Laura Seixas’s Dreaming Whilst Black has now been commissioned for a pilot by Sarah! Sarah announced this year’s winner, Sophie McCartney AKA Tired and Tested with her series Planet Birth. Sarah said: “web series are hot property” adding that Planet Birth was “hilarious and so real.”
2010 Funny Women Awards winner, actor and author Andi Osho came online to announce Nikola McMurtrie and her film Karaoke: Behind the Lyrics as the winner of this year’s Comedy Shorts! Andi said: “it was a great, great film!” adding the film was “brilliantly done!”
We were excited to debut the Best Comedy Writer with Comedy 50:50 Industry Award, with Comedy 50:50’s Emma Barnard and Rachel Parris who had the honour of announcing Christine Rose as the first winner of this new Awards category! Rachel noted that comedy writers are “such an important part of comedy” and that “writers don’t often get the credit they deserve”.
2020 Funny Women Awards winner Izzy Askwith performed her winning set before we were joined by Funny Women Matron Jo Brand who congratulated all those who “took a leap of faith” and entered the competition categories and encouraging the finalists and winners to “stick at it” ending the socially distanced night on the perfect note.
Thanks to all those involved and congratulations to our 2020 winners!
To find out more about all the finalists, judges and producers behind the Awards here is our online show programme here!
