How to create an Edinburgh Fringe comedy award in less than a fortnight…

Going Forth: the old Malcolm Hardee Awards (L-R) Comic Originality, Million Quid, Cunning Stunt

The annual Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards at the Edinburgh Fringe ended in 2017.

‘Mad inventor’ John Ward designed and made the actual trophies awarded over the previous ten years – for Comic Originality, for best Cunning Stunt and for the Act Most Likely to Make a Million Quid.

A fortnight ago, it was announced the awards – re-named The Hardees – would re-start, this time run by the British Comedy Guide website.

The BCG already give annual Comedians’ Choice Awards at the Fringe.

With the Malcolm Hardee Awards revived after a short hiatus, new trophies had to be made. So the BCG asked John Ward to make more with (this year at least) the same design AND also to design and make a new-style trophy for their Comedians’ Choice Awards.

John Ward lives in Lincolnshire. I live in Borehamwood, on the edge of London. 

So we met in Milton Keynes, somewhere between us, and he showed me the newly-designed Comedians’ Choice trophy which, together with The Hardees, will be awarded in Edinburgh next weekend…

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John Ward with Edinburgh’s newly-designed Comedians’ Choice Award in… erm… Milton Keynes

WARD: I wanted to design something that would stand out, so it doesn’t look like everybody else’s trophies, although whoever wins will probably need a hernia belt – it weighs about a kilo. It’s made from a recycled plastic tube, copper pipe, steel, wood and other bits.

It’s mounted on a base composed of three pillars, representing Mirth, Merriment and Laughter. There is a brass/copper central stem (based on the idea you might need a ‘brass neck’ to perform in some venues!) with a big, wide, steel ‘grin’ signifying laughter and a red nose on top – the traditional emblem of the clown.

My original design for the grin was symmetrical but, when I looked at it there was something odd about it. So I turned the grinning mouth to one side by an inch so now it has a sort-of jaunty ha-ha-ha look about it. I think that works. If you look from the front or the back, it’s still a laughing mouth with a nose on top.

FLEMING: How long did it take to make?

WARD: You don’t wanna know.

FLEMING: I do.

WARD: No you don’t.

FLEMING: Yes I do.

WARD: You don’t.

FLEMING: Oh yes I do.

WARD: Oh no you don’t.

FLEMING: Oh lord.

WARD: I would think I probably spent – cutting, shutting, painting, all of that… a good three days there, on and off.

FLEMING: Cutting and shutting??

WARD: Cutting the tube and shutting the ends off to get them smooth and level, not sharp edges. There’s nothing on there that would cut your hand or anything or…

FLEMING: Where’s the fun in that?

WARD: True: that Boadicea with her chariot; think of the fun she could’ve had with her chariot down the Tottenham Court Road on a Saturday. But that were before the days of Health & Safety. For me, it were a case of making something so no-one could say: “Oh! It fell on me and broke me big toe”… Although, to be fair, that could happen.

FLEMING: Comedy is all about the unexpected.

WARD: Three days.