Draft:Best in Class (comedy initiative)

Best In Class is a grassroots initiative set up to support working-class comedians who wish to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe arts and media festival in Scotland. It was established in 2018 by Sian Davies, and in 2022 it won the Edinburgh Comedy Award Panel Prize.

History
Best In Class was set up in 2018, to support working-class comedians perform at the often financially prohibitive Edinburgh Fringe Festival. This was a reaction to Sian being dropped by a showcase show in Edinburgh, due to being unable to afford the £1800 needed to take part in the show. Sian mentioned this in her speech when picking up the Edinburgh Comedy Award Panel Prize in 2022, in front of a room of industry professionals.

The show is crowdfunded, and works on a profit-sharing basis, so the comedians involved get a split of the profits based on how many shows they take part in.

Alumni of the project include Tom Mayhew, who appeared in the first year, and went on to have his own BBC Radio 4 series; 2021 BBC New Comedy Award winner Anna Thomas; Jordan Gray, who was nominated for the main Edinburgh Comedy Award in 2022 ; Jamie Hutchinson, well-known for his appearances on the Have a Word podcast; and Laura Smyth, who appeared on Jonathan Ross' Comedy Club in 2020 and Live at the Apollo in 2023.

The project has enabled 24 working class comedians to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe since 2018, and assisted a further 20 performers with accommodation grants in 2022.

The initiative was mentioned by Fringe of Colour in their acceptance speech for the 2019 Edinburgh Comedy Award Panel Prize, before going on to win the Panel Prize itself in 2022. This led to Best In Class getting a West End run at the prestigious Soho Theatre, with dates in October 2022, January 2023, and April 2023.

The 2023 line-up was announced on 10th February 2023.

In April 2023, it was announced that Best In Class were giving away their £5000 prize money for winning the Panel Prize, with it being distributed to working-class comedians who were bringing a show to the Edinburgh Fringe that year.

In August 2023, Lindsey Santoro became the first alumni to be nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Awards Best Newcomer award. She also won NextUp Comedy's Biggest Prize in Comedy award, which the previous year was won by another previous BIC alumni, Jordan Gray.

The line-up for 2024 was announced in February of that year.

After criticism of the initiative from The Telegraph for being "too woke", an article about the initiative was written in The Guardian, defending the scheme for the work it does to help accessibility within the arts.