Ashfield's Takeover Radio 106.9FM sponsors new Joke of the Edinburgh Fringe award

The support reflects the station’s aim to raise awareness of the opportunities for young people across Ashfield and Mansfield to engage in the arts. The station delivered a series of shows from the 2024 Fringe and is back again this year with interviews, previews and reviews throughout the whole month.

Nick Mellors, a volunteer with Takeover Radio 106.9FM who will be running shows from Edinburgh again this year said, “We believe there is no reason why young people from our working class and left behind communities across the country should not have the same opportunities to enjoy and take part in the arts.

Last year we ran shows from Edinburgh including showcasing great Nottinghamshire talent, from our local university arts group to Colin Hoult who won the ‘Biggest Award in Comedy at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2024’ and Ashfield comedian Jacob Nussey who has brought his debut hour ‘Primed’ about his life around Ashfield to the Fringe this year and is already selling out his shows. We also broadcast shows with last year’s Nottingham Comedy Festival as well as the Mansfield Town Film Festival.

With funding from local business Innovation Nottinghamshire, we are delighted to be supporting this brand new international award to showcase the creative talent at this year’s Fringe and to show that communities like ours can take part and hopefully inspire others to go for it and show that ‘people like us can do stuff like this from places like ours’ “

The Fringe shows will be broadcast at 7pm every Monday (repeated at 11pm on Wednesdays and 7pm on Saturdays) on 106.9FM with a live stream available to listeners anywhere in the world on Canstream at https://radio.canstream.co.uk:8160/live.mp3 .

The ISH Edinburgh Comedy Awards began in 2023, when the long-established Edinburgh Comedy Awards lost their funding and looked unlikely to go ahead in 2023. But after the Edinburgh Comedy Awards found new sponsors, the organisers of the ISH Awards decided to go ahead anyway because of a surge of support from comedians, producers, venues and Nica Burns who runs the Edinburgh Comedy Awards themselves. Nathan Cassidy concludes, "I’ll always remember one long-listed comedian saying to us, ‘You’ve not only changed my Fringe, you’ve changed my life, as you’ve shown that people like me can be recognised.’

Visit www.edinburghcomedyawards.com for more information on the awards, clips, eligibility, and even to get involved this year as a judge.