After a three-year covid-enforced hiatus, The Malcolm Hardee Awards returned to the Edinburgh Fringe with winners announced overnight.

The awards - handed out in the memory of comic, agent, manager, club-owner and prankster Malcolm Hardee - celebrate and promote the spirit of anything-goes comedy anarchy at the Edinburgh Festival.

The 2022 winners were announced during a prize ceremony at the BlundaBus venue at 1am this morning. They are as follows:

Comic Originality: The Flop: A Band Of Idiots

Comprised of Dan Lees, Tom Penn and Cammy Sinclair (Lees and Sinclair pictured above), The Flop performed their show at The Banshee Labyrinth at 10:10pm between the 6th and 20th August. Their brochure blurb explains: "60 minutes, 12 notes and three idiots. Musical mayhem and expert clowning from the greatest band in the whole world... ever."

Mr Chonkers was also nominated in this category.

Cunning Stunt: Ivor Dembina

Judges said: "The 2022 Cunning Stunt prize goes to comedian Ivor Dembina for his reaction to the Edinburgh bin collection strike, promoting the growing piles of uncollected rubbish as performance art."

Act Most Likely To Make A Million Quid: Jerry Sadowitz

Originally scheduled to play just two shows at the Pleasance's EICC venue as part of his national tour Not For Anyone, cult comic and former Hardee protégé Jerry Sadowitz made national headlines when his show was unceremoniously axed after its first night, with Pleasance claiming both "[we are] a venue that champions freedom of speech and we do not censor comedians' material," and "the material presented at his first show is not acceptable ... this type of material has no place on the festival".

Judges explained "Ironically, after being cancelled, Sadowitz is seeing a huge increase in ticket sales for the show's tour, and is now adding a date at the 3,600+ seater Hammersmith Apollo in November.

"The Million Quid is getting closer for the most unlikely of reasons."

The usual, anarchic awards show was not able to take place this year, with a fittingly hastily arranged results ceremony taking place in the middle of the night. The winners each receive a specially made trophy designed by inventor John Ward.

This year's judging panel consisted of Marissa Burgess, Kate Copstick, Bruce Dessau, Jay Richardson, Claire Smith and Ian Wolf.

The Malcolm Hardee Awards have run since 2005, the year of Malcolm Hardee's death. They ended in 2017, however having been 'much missed' at the 2018 festival, they have now been revived by British Comedy Guide, with the blessing of original organiser John Fleming and the Hardee family.