02 November 2020

In the year when we all really needed a laugh, many of Australia’s best loved and most acclaimed comedians have been recognised in the nominations for the 2020 AACTA Awards for television.

The Best Comedy Performer category sees most nominated performer of the decade Celia Pacquola tapped again, alongside ROSEHAVEN co-creator/ best mate Luke McGregor, and Anne Edmonds – nominated for her show-stealing sketches in AT HOME ALONE TOGETHER.

AACTA this year created two new comedy awards – Best Comedy Series, and Best Comedy Entertainment – to be inclusive of broader formats such as stand-up and panels, alongside more traditional formats of narrative and sketch comedy. To that end Guesswork TV’s AUSTRALIAN AMAZON ORIGINAL STAND-UP SPECIALS and AUSTRALIAN LOCKDOWN COMEDY FESTIVAL are up against DRUNK HISTORY AUSTRALIA and LOL: LAST ONE LAUGHING AUSTRALIA – all of which featured a wide range of our super-talented artists including Bec Charlwood, Cal Wilson, Claire Hooper, Dave Hughes, Geraldine Hickey, Judith Lucy, Lano & Woodley, Nath Valvo, Sam Simmons, Sam Taunton, Tom Ballard, Wil Anderson & Zoe Coombs Marr.

Meanwhile ROSEHAVEN once again competes for the AACTA Award for Best Comedy Series – this time against AT HOME ALONE TOGETHER (featuring Danielle Walker, David Woodhead, Greg Larsen, Nikki Britton, Laura Hughes, Ryan Shelton & Vidya Rajan amongst others).

Tom Gleeson’s HARD QUIZ, Charlie Pickering’s THE WEEKLY and HAVE YOU BEEN PAYING ATTENTION (featuring Celia Pacquola and Lloyd Langford as regular guests) have been tapped for Best Comedy Entertainment

The AACTA Award for Best Factual Entertainment Program sees THE PROJECT (featuring Waleed Aly, Peter Helliar, Tommy Little & Susie Youssef up against last year’s winner, YOU CAN’T ASK THAT, as well as HAMISH & ANDY’S “PERFECT” HOLIDAY, LOVE ON THE SPECTRUM, GOGGLEBOX AUSTRALIA and WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, the latter series featuring Denise Scott.

Best Reality Program MASTERCHEF AUSTRALIA faces tough competition from fellow past nominees AUSTRALIAN SURVIVOR: ALL STARS, THE AMAZING RACE AUSTRALIA,THE BLOCK and I’M A CELEBRITY… GET ME OUT OF HERE! (Dilruk Jayasinha), along with newcomer series THE REAL DIRTY DANCING (just quietly, Anne Edmonds’ hula on-stage at the Enmore Theatre almost certainly guaranteed this nom).

Our comedy cup truly runneth over this year – congratulations to all our Token Artists who are nominated!