The Stage

Chit chat - Stunt runner

Published Tuesday 16 June 2009 at 11:40 by Tabard

Meanwhile, Tabard was pleased to note the launch of a new competition up at the Edinburgh fringe - the Malcolm Hardee Award for Best Publicity Stunt.

Even before the fringe has started, there appears to be a clear front-runner in comedian Lewis Schaffer, who earlier this month sent out a press release claiming that the Edinburgh Comedy Awards were going to be renamed in his honour after he’d agreed to sponsor them for £99. The spoof email was sent to journalists from an email address which purported to be from a Nika [sic] Burns. The awards organiser - Nica Burns - wasn’t too impressed and an apologetic press release ensued from Schaffer.

Perhaps most impressively, though, he managed to use the apology to plug his show as well, while keeping his tongue firmly in his cheek.

He wrote: “Lewis Schaffer wants to make it clear that Nica Burns had absolutely nothing to do with the press release sent on June 6th, 2009 from ‘Nika Burns’, it was entirely created by Lewis Schaffer. Nica Burns did not say she ‘gladly accepted his offer of £99 a year for sponsorship’ of what had previously been called the ‘Perrier Awards’. Anyone knowing Lewis Schaffer knows he couldn’t come up with that kind of cash…

“Lewis Schaffer’s only defence was that his ‘press release’ was created to publicise his Edinburgh Fringe show -‘Lewis Schaffer - Bigger and Blacker’ - running August 6 to 30 in the Ballroom of The Counting House, behind the Pleasance Dome.”