Edgy comic Brendon Burns does backflip over King of Comedy honors   

LONDON (Hollywood Today/AFP) 8/25/07 – Australian comic Brendon Burns was on Sunday named winner of Britain’s top comedy award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Hollywood actor Christian Slater presented the shock comic with both honors and cash. The award came after 11 years of performing at the Fringe.

He reportedly cried with joy when nominated and did a promised backflip if he won. “I know it is a cliché but I am home and hosed. This is all I wanted, and I said I would do a backflip if I won, he told the British Newspaper the Independent “It is brilliant. This year was my last shot at it because there is an 80 per cent chance that I’ll go professional and would be ineligible.”

Producer of the Intelligent Finance (IF) Comedy Awards’ best comedy prize, Nica Burns, said Burns’ show “So I Suppose This Is Offensive Now” was “edgy and dangerous.”

The IF Comedy Awards replaced the Perrier Comedy Awards, which were first won in 1981 by the Cambridge Footlights, a troupe from Britain’s elite Cambridge University that included actors Emma Thompson and Hugh Laurie.

Burns, who has mainly worked in Britain, including with “Borat” star Sacha Baron Cohen, is known for his aggressive stage-presence.

A Guardian newspaper review of one of his shows in 2005 said: “The greatest joy of a Burns show… is watching him fail to control his impulses.

“Every so often a wicked idea lights up his eyes and a brief internal struggle ensues. Decorum always loses.”

He wins $16,000 dollars.