Nominated in three previous years, the rambunctious standup – one half of The Delightful Sausage – wins the prize for his show Rewilding while Marty Gleeson is named best newcomer

The annual Edinburgh comedy award has been won by the standup Chris Cantrill, two years after his comedy partner Amy Gledhill – in the raucous northern double act The Delightful Sausage – won the same prize.

Cantrill, 42 and from Bradford, received the so-called “Oscar of live comedy” for a show, Rewilding, about his new life in rural Northumberland, where an act of vandalism shocks the local community – and a spoof whodunnit ensues. It builds on the foundations laid in 2024 by Easily Swayed, which documented his move to the countryside and secured what was then Cantrill’s third nomination (but first as a solo act) for the award.

Monkey Barrel Comedy, Edinburgh
Cantrill shares his struggles descending into middle age and his awkward interactions with fellow villagers in a fun show

Now a four-time nominee for the Edinburgh comedy award, Chris Cantrill is bearing down on James Acaster’s always-the-bridesmaid record – unless 2026 proves to be his year. Would it be merited? Well, there are few comedians in whose company it is more reliably fun to spend time. And that’s resoundingly the case with Rewilding, the follow-up to 2024’s Easily Swayed, in which Cantrill gave an uproarious account of turning 40, moving to the countryside and having (the male, northern, emotionally stunted equivalent of) a breakdown.

The sequel is scarcely less entertaining, but it’s not as well constructed, and its story is less resonant. It begins with this ebullient Bradford native explaining how bad he is at introducing himself, with reference to “drinks and nibs” his wife has coerced him to attend in their Northumbrian village. Cantrill is chronic at small talk, he tells us, yet adept at code-switching – as demonstrated in the company of the “gen Z girls and gays” who love him, rural workers whose opinions he meekly opposes in the pub, and the private-school boys who (as per one gloriously indiscreet section) call the shots where Cantrill works, on Saturday Night Live UK.

At Monkey Barrel Comedy, Edinburgh, until 30 August

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