THE Irish comic, Ardal O'Hanlon, has been disqualified from the Perrier award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival on the grounds that he is "too big a star".
The Perrier award, the biggest stand up comedy award in the world, is given each year to the best performer on the fringe. It carries a substantial cash prize, as well as the guarantee of a long run in a major London theatre. A specially convened meeting of the Perrier panel on Sunday ruled O'Hanlon ineligible.
One of the rules of the award is that no performer should be capable of "selling out a middle scale theatre venue (about 400 seats) or have a high profile on a comedy television series". O'Hanlon failed on both counts in that his upcoming British/Irish tour has already sold out in theatres with a 1,200 seat capacity and he is the star of Channel 4's hit sit com Father Ted.
"We had a long, long discussion about Ardal on Sunday," said Nica Burns, chairwoman of the Perrier panel, "and unfortunately we deemed him to be ineligible. I must confess to being a big personal fan of his work. I voted for him when he won his first award in London, but he's just got too famous too quickly and, while we perfectly understand that his role as Father Dougal in Father Ted is completely separate from his stand up work, he already has the pulling power to sell out any venue he wants."
O'Hanlon's show is the runaway success of the festival. Every night of the 31/2 week run has been sold out weeks in advance and, as the reviewer from the Independent on Sunday noted, "the queues stretch back to Aberdeen".
The comic was philosophical about the Perrier decision. "They're absolutely right," he said. "In a way it takes some pressure off me, in that I won't be sitting around worried if I got a nomination. I'll be glad to see the attention fall on somebody else and just let me get on with doing the best shows I possibly can."
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