If.comedy

Edinburgh Comedy Awards
Best Newcomer Nominees 2015
Sponsored by	Foster's
Date	1981
Location	Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Country	Scotland
Formerly called	Perrier Award, if.comeddies, if.comedy Awards
Reward(s)	£10,000 (Main prize), £5,000 (Other prizes)
Currently held by	John Robins, Hannah Gadsby, Natalie Palamides
Highlights
Best Comedy Show	John Robins - The Darkness Of Robins / Hannah Gadsby Nanette
Best Newcomer	Natalie Palamides - LAID
Panel Prize	Not awarded in 2017. Iraq Out & Loud: Reading the Chilcot Report in Full had been the 2016 winner.
Website	comedyawards.co.uk

The Edinburgh Comedy Awards or Eddies (formerly the Perrier Comedy Awards, and also briefly known by other names for sponsorship reasons) are presented to the comedy shows deemed to have been the best at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland. Established in 1981, they are the most prestigious comedy prize in the United Kingdom. The awards have been directed and produced by Nica Burns since 1984.

The most recent awards were given to John Robins, Hannah Gadsby and Natalie Palamides

The main prize, which was for many years the only prize, and is now known as the Best Comedy Show, is awarded "for the funniest, most outstanding, up-and-coming comic / comedy show / act" at the Fringe. The winner receives a cash prize of £10,000 and an invitation to perform at the Montreal, Toronto and Chicago Just for Laughs Comedy Festivals.

The Best Newcomer Award category was introduced in 1992, and is given to the best "performer or act who is performing their first full-length show (50 minutes or more)". The prize is £5,000. Newcomers are eligible for the Best Comedy Show Award, but no act is allowed to appear on both shortlists in the same year.

A further prize, the Panel Prize, was inaugurated in 2006. All shows are eligible, and the award may not be awarded at all, if the panel so choose. This happened in 2017, when for the first time there were joint winners of the main prize. Previously, in 2008, it had been awarded to "every comedian on the Fringe". Like Best Newcomer, the Panel Prize winner receives a cash prize of £5,000.

The original award was created by Perrier in 1981 as a way of supporting young talent. Prior to this, there had been no award recognition for comedy shows on the Fringe. The Scotsman had introduced Fringe Firsts in 1973 for theatre. However, revues, then the dominant type of comedy at the Fringe, were excluded. The first Perrier in fact advertised itself as for the "most outstanding revue", thus overlooking stand-up, which was beginning to emerge as a force due to the influence of the alternative comedy scene.