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Raw Comedy

Australian annual comedy award

Field	Value
name	RAW Comedy
subheader
image_size
awarded_for	Stand-up comedy
date	1996
location
country	Australia
host
holder
most_awards
website
network
viewership
image2size

Raw Comedy, stylised as RAW Comedy, is an Australian annual competition for emerging stand-up comedians held by Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

History and description

The Raw Comedy competition was established at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in 1996. In 2011, there were 1,100 contestants.

The competition is supported by national youth radio station Triple J. the competition attracts around 1,000 entrants annually from all over Australia, and is the largest open-mic comedy competition in the country.

A series of heats take place in major Australian cities through January, February and March. State semi-finals and finals are held in the state capitals in March. Judges select the most impressive state-finalist/s to compete at the Raw Comedy grand finale, which held as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival at the Melbourne Town Hall in April and is televised later in June/July of the same year.

The winner of Raw Comedy is sent to the So You Think You're Funny competition at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Three Raw Comedy winners (Drew Rokos, Nick Sun, and Demi Lardner) have gone on to win So You Think You're Funny.

Past winners and finalists

Year	Winner(s)	Other finalists
1996	Anthony Menchetti (WA)
1997	Subby Valentine (NSW)
1998	Chris Franklin (NSW)
1999	Chris Wainhouse (Qld)
2000	Drew Rokos (Vic)
2001	Emily O'Loughlin (SA)
2002	Dave Elvins (NSW)
2003	Nelly Thomas (Vic)
Steve Sheehan (SA)
2004	Nick Sun (NSW)
2005	Josh Thomas (Qld)
2006	Hannah Gadsby (SA)
2007	Jonathan Schuster (Vic)
2008	Neil Sinclair (Vic)
2009	Cassie Workman (WA)
2010	Luke Heggie (NSW)
2011	Dayne Rathbone (Vic)
2012	Lessons with Luis (Vic)
2013	Demi Lardner (SA)
2014	Matt Stewart (Vic)
2015	Angus Gordon (Qld)
2016	Danielle Walker (VIC)
2017	Zack Dyer (VIC)
2018	Bec Melrose (NSW)
2019	Fady Kassab (NSW)
2021	Prue Blake (VIC)
2022	Alexandra Hudson (NSW) and Bron Lewis (QLD)
2023	Henry Yan (VIC)
2024	Omar Gadd (NT)
2025	Peter Josip (VIC)

References

"Melbourne International Comedy Festival".
(11 April 2011). "Raw Comedy won by awkward freak". [[The Sydney Morning Herald]].
"About RAW Comedy".
(24 January 2008). "2008 Raw Comedy Competition". [[PerthNow]].
"Sleek Geeks: Adam Spencer".
(30 August 2008). "My big break". The Daily Telegraph.
(12 April 2010). "Luke Heggie Wins National Comedy Title".
Platt, Craig. (11 April 2011). "Raw Comedy won by awkward freak". [[The Sydney Morning Herald]].
Platt, Craig. (15 April 2012). "Raw Comedy and the rise of awkwardness". [[The Sydney Morning Herald]].
(15 April 2013). "Demi Lardner wins Raw Comedy". [[The Age]].
Taras, Nick. (14 April 2014). "Review: Raw comedy up-and-comers inventive and entertaining". [[The Sydney Morning Herald]].
Platt, Craig. (13 April 2015). "Raw Comedy 2015 winner: Angus Gordon wins national comedy competition". [[The Sydney Morning Herald]].
(14 April 2025). "RAW Comedy National Grand Final 2025 winner announced". [[Arts Hub]].

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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