All the winners from the Melbourne festival

 Hannah Gadsby has won the biggest award in Australian live comedy.

The stand-up won the Barry Award at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival for her show Nanette, which featured poignant stories of the homophobic abuse she once suffered. She has said the show, which heads to the Edinburgh Fringe in August, will be her last stand-up project.

Gadsby accepted the award in honour of New Zealand comic John Clarke, who died earlier this month - rather than honour the creator of Dame Edna, who gave the prize its name.

She said: 'I don't agree with a lot of the things Barry Humphries has said recently.  It is not something I will walk past.  With full respect, I would like to accept this award just for me.'

Humphries’ has been criticised for making negative comments about transgender people, saying that those who undergo gender reassignment surgery are just "mutilated men'.

On a more positive note, Gadsby said without the Melbourne Comedy Festival she might never have become a performer. 'Thank you to the festival very much because I doubt I would do stand-up comedy without this festival and the situations they set up. I don’t have the constitution.  I wouldn’t have fought it out in a pub.

'This festival has done a lot to encourage different voices so thank you for the support.'

The other nominees for the award were Richard Gadd,  Damien Power, Tom Walker, Anne Edmonds  and Sammy J.

Walker had previously had 'Barry Winner 2016' permanently inked on to his right arm, despite predicting that Gadsby would win, and returned to the tattoo studio on Sunday to have it fixed:

.@MrRichardGadd @anneedmonds1 @DamienPower01 @Hannahgadsby Congratulations @Hannahgadsby! pic.twitter.com/h6CAsYb2bL

— TOM (@tomwalkerisgood) April 23, 2017

Angus Gordon and Aaron Chen shared the best newcomer, which goes to an Australian or New Zealand comedian performing their first show, after judges ended in deadlock.  Both will have the opportunity to present shows at the Soho Theatre in London.

The directors' choice award went to Demi Lardner, a former Raw comedy and So You Think You're Funny? winner who got critical acclaim for her absurd show, Look What You Made Me Do 

In other categories, the comedians' choice award, the Piece of Wood  (which is exactly what it is) went to Luke Heggie.

The John Pinder Prize, which funds an Australian act to go to the Edinburgh Fringe and is named after one of the Melbourne festival's founders, went to Damien Power.

Wil Anderson and Disappointments, the joint show of veterans Judith Lucy and Denise Scott, shared the  Vodafone Peoples' Choice Award, based on ticket sales.

Anderson said: 'I have been appearing at the festival a very long time and I have never seen a year when the shows were stronger across the board so I want to give a shout out to everybody who is in this room.'

And the Golden Gibbo Award for an independent local show with artistic merit, went to A Visit With Nan in a Caravan's Granny Bingo - a 15-minute show held in a caravan. It is named in memory of the late comedian Lynda Gibson

The show features comics Kyle Minall, Scott Brennan and Thomas Jaspers, who said: 'There are more people in this room than have ever seen the show.'

Brennan whose character does not speak in the show said: 'Don’t do a show in a caravan.  It’s a really small space and we three really fucking hate each other.'

At the ceremony, festival director Susan Provan paid tribute to all the comedians at the event, saying: 'It has been a great festival with a lot of exciting new work.  A lot of work has been about acceptance and about making the world a better place - which we all bloody well need right now.'

- by Claire Smith

Published: 22 Apr 2017