... began in 1981 as the Perrier Comedy Award. There was originally only one award; the first winner was Cambridge Footlights (Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Tony Slattery, Emma Thompson, Penny Dwyer and Paul Shearer).
The Best Newcomer Award was introduced in 1991, when Harry Hill was the first winner.
In 1995 the Perrier brand was bought by Nestlé. This attracted some controversy to the awards as Nestlé was the subject of a long–running boycott based on alleged violations of the International Code of Marketing of Breast–milk Substitutes.
Perrier's sponsorship of the awards came to an end in 2005, and for the next three years the sponsor was the Scottish–based bank Intelligent Finance. The awards were known as the if.comeddies in 2006 and the if.comedy awards in 2007 and 2008.
A Panel Prize was introduced in 2006. The first winner was Mark Watson.
In 2009 there was no sponsor, and the awards became known as the Edinburgh Comedy Awards. From 2010 to 2015 they were sponsored by Foster's and known as the Foster's Edinburgh Comedy Awards. Sponsorship was provided by lastminute.com for three years from 2016, and since 2019 (to date) it's been the television channel Dave.
According to Wikipedia, "past winners are now often said to have won 'the Eddie', to avoid confusion due to the frequency of name changes."
© Haydn Thompson 2021