Thursday, August 27, 2009

Comedian Sarah Millican on Edinburgh Comedy Awards lack of female nominees




The reason I wasn't selected is nothing to do with my gender. It's also not because my show isn't good. It's that it wasn't what the judges were looking for this year.

Last year, when I was nominated alongside Pippa Evans and Mike Wozniak for the best newcomer award, no one wondered why there was only one man. Is it that men just aren't very good at writing their first show? No, it's because the shows that Pippa, Mike and I wrote were popular among a group of people who happened to be judges.

Genuinely, if I had been on the list this year and had heard a whisper that I was there because of box-ticking tokenism, I would have wanted to be removed from the list. I am not female: I am a comedian. I want to be judged alongside other comedians on merit, not on gender.

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