Festival toasts Perrier nominees

Dave Gorman is in the running for the £5000 prize

Five comedians have made it onto the shortlist of the Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

The nominees have been picked out by the 10 judges from 140 comedy acts who entered the competition.

The Perrier is considered the UK's foremost stand-up comedy prize, and was won last year by Al Murray with his Pub Landlord act.

This year's nominees are:

• Dave Gorman appearing in Are You Dave Gorman at Edinburgh's Pleasance Theatre.
• Rich Hall appearing in Rich Hall is Otis Lee Crenshaw at the Pleasance Theatre.
• Sean Lock appearing at the Scotsman Assembly Halls.
• Lee Mack appearing in Lee Mack's New Bits at the Pleasance.
• Garth Marenghi appearing in Garth Marenghi's Fright Knight at the Pleasance.

Previous winners include Lee Evans, Steve Coogan, Frank Skinner, Sean Hughes and the League of Gentlemen.

Lee Mack gets entangled with collaborators Catherine Tate, left, & Dan Antopolski, right

To be eligible, acts must be original and fall into the cabaret, comedy, revue or stand-up categories. Established acts are not eligible.

This year's winner gets a £5,000 prize, and a lead spot at the Perrier Pick of The Fridge Season show at Her Majesty's Theatre in the West End.

The winner will be announced on Saturday.

On Tuesday, another comedy newcomer prize - the Daily Telegraph Open Mic award - went to a Londoner with cerebral palsy who performs jokes about people with disabilities.

Francesca Martinez, 22, was the only female finalist in the competition. She recieves £2,000 and a booking on a nationwide club circuit, as well as openings at festivals in Melbourne and Montreal.

Shaking at the microphone, she joked that her ideal man would be someone who was "loyal, understanding, and who would trust me enough to let me cut his hair".

Judges included Michael Barrymore, Harry Hill, and comic writer Henry Normal.