Two comedy acts feature in this year’s Best Entertainment nominations. Al Murray has been nominated for his Pub Landlord character which he recreated at the Playhouse in My Gaff, My Rules. Winner of the Perrier Award in 1999, Murray was originally ruled out the running for being 'too popular', until the organisers relented.
The other comedy contender is The League Of Gentlemen for their stage show at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The characters, familiar from the BBC television series, include odd couple Tubbs and Edward, the murderous snub-nosed proprietors of the local shop, and Babs, the pre-op transsexual mini cab driver. Going head to head with the comedians, and populated with as many weird characters, is Shockheaded Peter. Billed as a 'junk opera', the show features a psychotic hare and the ominous sounding Scissor Man.
Also putting up a fight is Barbara Cook Sings Mostly Sondheim but also songs that "he wishes he had written". The other competitor in the category is The Vagina Monologues which regularly changes its cast, presenting a succession of prominent women, including supermodels Caprice and Sophie Dahl, Maureen Lipman, Jerry Hall and the writer herself, Eve Ensler.
