Comedian Chris Cantrill wins prestigious Edinburgh Comedy Award

Comedian Chris Cantrill, 42, has won the Edinburgh Comedy Award, one of British comedy's most notable prizes, previously awarded to figures including Steve Coogan and Frank Skinner. It was Cantrill's fourth nomination — twice as a solo performer and twice as part of the duo The Delightful Sausage with his wife Amy Gledhill, who won the award herself in 2024.

His winning show, Rewilding, follows on from 2024's Easily Swayed and continues the story of his move to rural Northumberland. Set in a fictionalised village, the show revolves around an act of vandalism against a local landmark, echoing the real-life felling of the Sycamore Gap tree, which caused widespread public outrage. Cantrill said the show was inspired by how his own community reacted to that incident, and by his fascination with how strongly people can feel about a tree.

Cantrill did not begin performing comedy until he was 28, after working as a marketing manager. The Delightful Sausage duo was formed in 2016 around the time his first child was born, as he looked for a new direction. He said earlier nominations for the award had already helped shift him from part-time comedy into a full-time career, though he does not expect the win itself to be transformative — describing it mainly as making people slightly more likely to respond to his emails.

The award comes as Cantrill begins writing on the second series of SNL UK, the British adaptation of Saturday Night Live. He cancelled his final two fringe performances to start on the new series the day after being interviewed. He described working on SNL UK as one of the hardest jobs of his career, but also the closest he has come to what he always imagined comedy writing would feel like.