Bath Comedy Festival has presented its annual Bath Plug Award, a prize it hands out to recognise outstanding services to comedy.

This year's award was presented to actor, comedian and author Helen Lederer.

She was presented with the gold plug on a ribbon during a special celebratory launch of her memoir Not That I'm Bitter, which took place at the festival's new venue Upstairs @ Bath Pizza Co.

Festival director Nick Steel said: "Every year, Bath Comedy gives a special award to someone, for all round services to comedy. We've been pals for over a decade and this has been a long time coming, but - for all the things we've heard about today, for championing women in comedy, having been one of the first women in stand-up comedy during the 80s; for so many achievements, not least for the amazing work creating CWIP [the annual Comedy Women In Print competition] - it gives me great pleasure to bestow the 2024 Bath Plug Award on Helen Lederer."

CWIP award recipient Becky Rogers happened to be in the audience. Addressing the house, she said: "Helen is my fairy godmother. In creating CWIP, she opened doors for me that I didn't know existed. She is incredibly modest about her achievements but in setting up Comedy Women in Print she really has changed the lives of so many witty women writers."