Yogie Belle, Zoe Wohlfeld and Kate Smurthwaite take Edinburgh Fringe’s Malcolm Hardee Awards
Yogie Belle, Zoe Wohlfeld and Kate Smurthwaite have won the 2026 Malcolm Hardee Awards, recognising the boldest, strangest and most inventive work at the Edinburgh Fringe. From extreme ASMR to a Greyfriars Bobby funeral procession and a new stand-up show every day, this year’s winners embody comedy’s appetite for risk.
Key takeaways
Yogie Belle won Comic Originality for his ASMR-inspired show.
Zoe Wohlfeld took Cunning Stunt for a colourful Greyfriars Bobby procession.
Kate Smurthwaite won The Act That Should Make a Million Quid.
The awards celebrate the adventurous spirit associated with Malcolm Hardee.
Together, the winners offer a brilliant reminder that live comedy can be intimate, surprising and gloriously unpredictable—the same qualities audiences value when discovering professional performers at grassroots clubs such as Comedy in Your Eye at The Camden Eye in Camden Town.
Yogie Belle wins Comic Originality
Belle received the Comic Originality award for Auditory Awakenings with Mr Tingles in the House of ASMR, performed at PBH Free Fringe at Bannerman’s. Describing himself as “the world’s most extreme ASMR practitioner”, the west London filmmaker was surprised by judges Ian Wolf and Mark Dean Quinn during his show.
Belle said he was “in eleventh heaven” and described the performance as an exploration of “the joy in small things”. He added that, amid the noise of the modern world, the show is about listening to small sounds and finding your own voice.
Zoe Wohlfeld’s street spectacle takes the stunt prize
The Cunning Stunt award went to Zoe Wohlfeld for staging a procession through Edinburgh to honour Greyfriars Bobby and promote Zoe Wohlfeld: Dog Funeral at Underbelly.
Colourful clowns, performers and drag artists joined the procession, which invited members of the public to take part. Wohlfeld shared the recognition with her collaborators and the many performers who helped carry signs, flowers and Bobby’s coffin through the city. Her closing message was characteristically Fringe: “Long live the memory of Greyfriars Bobby and don’t touch the nose!”
Kate Smurthwaite takes on an extreme creative challenge
Kate Smurthwaite won The Act That Should Make a Million Quid for a remarkable commitment at Banshee Labyrinth: writing and performing a completely new full-length stand-up show every day, based on audience suggestions from the previous day, with Tuesdays excluded.
The project used no AI and no old material. Smurthwaite was nominated in every award category and described the undertaking as the biggest challenge she had attempted. Recalling Malcolm Hardee’s support for risk-taking comedy, she said the project honoured his spirit—but firmly added that she would not repeat it next year.
A tradition of fearless Fringe comedy
The awards were launched in 2005 by comedy blogger and producer John Fleming and are supported by the British Comedy Guide. They honour Malcolm Hardee, the audacious comic and promoter whose influence remains closely associated with inventive, boundary-pushing performance.
Previous winners include Bo Burnham, Trevor Noah, Stewart Lee, Jerry Sadowitz, Julia Masli and Phil Ellis, who has won twice. This year’s judging panel included critics Bruce Dessau, Kate Copstick and Claire Smith, alongside Ian Wolf, Marissa Burgess and new judge Mark Dean Quinn.
Dessau said judges were “spoilt for choice”, a fitting verdict for a Fringe that continues to reward originality. For London audiences, that spirit lives on beyond August too: Comedy in Your Eye’s weekly Tuesday and Thursday shows offer a welcoming, intimate pub setting for discovering high-calibre comedians—often from the wider professional circuit—without the scale or expense of a major venue.
Malcolm Hardee Awards Winners Announced, Beyond The Joke.
Malcolm Hardee Awards 2026 winners, British Comedy Guide.