Nicholas Parsons Collects Legend Of Comedy Award At Leicester Comedy Festival Annual Award Ceremony

Tonight Leicester Comedy Festival hosted its annual award ceremony at The Haymarket Theatre (Leicester) honouring the comedians, venues and promoters that make the festival one of the largest and most successful in Europe. The ceremony was hosted by Mark Dolan and attended by Nicholas Parsons who collected the Legend of Comedy Award. Previous legends have included Victoria Wood, Barry Cryer, Rik Mayall, Ken Dodd and Sir Norman Wisdom.

The awards, set up in 2006, recognise the contribution people make to the February festival and include awards for Best Show, Best Debut Show, Best New Show, Best Venue, Best Promoter, Best Kids Show, Best Musical Show, Best Poster, Best Community Project and Lifetime Contribution to Leicester Comedy Festival.

Festival director, Geoff Rowe said "I am thrilled that Nicholas attended the ceremony to collect the trophy and join us to celebrate 25 years of Leicester Comedy Festival. Nicholas celebrated a record breaking 50 years of hosting Just A Minute last December and has appeared at our festival many times over the years. It is an honour to recognise his contribution to British comedy with this award. The ceremony also allowed us to celebrate the acts, venues, promoters and other organisations whose hard work has helped make this year the most successful in Leicester Comedy Festival's history."

Winners at the ceremony included:

Best Show Lloyd Langford: Six Quid's Worth of Jokes

Best Debut Show Peter Fleming: Have You Seen?

Best New Show Andrew Ryan: Sure, You Know Yourself

Best Musical Show Flo & Joan

Best Improv Show Conversation Garden Does A 'Bake Off' Themed Murder Mystery

Best Kids Show The Dark Room 4 Kids

Best Venue (under 200 capacity) Firebug

Best Venue (over 200 capacity) De Montfort Hall

Best New Venue The Cosy Club

Liberty Award Kids Comedy Hub

Best Promoter Jokes On Us

Community Award A Bellyful of Laughs in aid of Charity Link

Best poster Adele Cliff: Sheep

Leicestershire Favourite Joke Mark Dolan

Lifetime Contribution The Y

Legend of Comedy Nicholas Parsons

Leicester Comedy Festival 2018 included over 847 individual events in 69 venues across the city, over the festival's 19 days. Ticket sales increased by 9% across the festival and an estimated 125,000 people attended events. Audience research shows that around a third of all attendees travel to the festival from across the UK helping to generate the festival's economic benefit to Leicestershire at over £3million.

The festival produces a series of unique events each February, many of which have gone on to become cult hits, and in the case of The UK Pun Championships, even developing its own national day, #UKPunday, which trended throughout Monday 12th February, generating over 103.5 million impressions on Twitter.

The unique events that sold out this year include: a Q&A with Harry Hill, the Leicester Mercury Comedian of the Year Competition, Silver Stand Up Competition, The UK Pun Championships, Comedy in the Dark for Kids and Hotel D'Comedie.

How shows are judged:

All shows listed in the office festival guide are checked for eligibility. Every eligible show is seen by members of the awards panel in combination with members of the admin team and carefully selected scouts. The Awards panel is made up of previous panelists, people working in comedy and comedy fans from all over the country.

Leicester Comedy Festival 2019 will take place from the 6-24 February. For more information visit www.comedy-festival.co.uk

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