Comedy.co.uk Awards 2008 results

According to the results of our poll, in 2008 The Inbetweeners was easily the best new comedy of the year, whilst Coming Of Age was the show most people hated. The battle for the big award, the title of 'comedy of the year', was between Outnumbered and Peep Show. This was also the first year we started including Radio comedy in our awards.

Best New TV Sitcom: The Inbetweeners

2008 is not going to be remembered as a good year for new British sitcoms. However, there was one new show that stood head and shoulders above all others. The Inbetweeners made a low-key entrance via E4, however it wasn't long before word spread that this was a sitcom worth checking out. It captured the reality of being a teenager growing up in middle-class suburbia perfectly. This new show got eight times more votes than any other comedy in this category!

Best Returning TV Sitcom: Outnumbered

Things were healthy in the returning sitcom category, with established sitcoms like Gavin & Stacey, Lead Balloon and The IT Crowd pleasing viewers. In the end though the voting was between Peep Show and Outnumbered. The result was so close that people's 2nd choices came into play. In the end, it was Outnumbered that came out top... but only just - six votes was all that was in it! This result demonstrates just how quickly Outnumbered has become one of the UK's biggest comedies.

Best Radio Sitcom: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

This is one of the new radio categories we introduced to the Comedy.co.uk Awards in 2008. It was heartening to see so many radio sitcoms in the running for this award - Ed Reardon's Week, the pilot of Rhod Gilbert's Leaving Llanbobl and Bleak Expectations all picked up lots of votes, however they were just edged out by Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. It seems Douglas Adams's sleuth (played by Harry Enfield) was a particular audio favourite in 2008.

Best TV Sketch Show: Harry & Paul

What a turn around for this show! Last year, Ruddy Hell! It's Harry & Paul was in the running for our Worst Sketch Show award, however the re-titled and much-improved Harry & Paul is named the best sketch comedy this year. The scripts were definitely much improved, and the talent of the late Geoffrey Perkins (who took over the production for Series 2) was certainly evident.

(It should be noted That Mitchell And Webb Look also attracted a significant number of votes in this category).

Best Radio Sketch Show: Laura Solon: Talking And Not Talking

It would seem Laura Solon's audio sketch show was a favourite with our readers. It is notable for having lots of one-off sketches. A number of other formats also picked up a decent number of votes in this category: Tilt; The Penny Dreadfuls; Cowards; Footlights At 125; and A Series Of Psychotic Episodes. Kudos must go to Radio 7, as despite their tiny commissioning budget, three of these top six were from the digital station.

Best TV Entertainment Show: Harry Hill's TV Burp

(Panel shows were included in this category in this year). We initially thought this was going to be a fiercely contested category, because topical satire and panel show comedy was particularly strong in 2008. HIGNFY, Mock The Week, Never Mind The Buzzcocks and Would I Lie To You? were all popular choices, however in the end none of them came close to TV Burp, which easily gained the most votes.

Best Radio Entertainment Show: The Now Show

The voting for this inaugural radio award ended up being between Radio 4's three Friday night series (The Now Show, The News Quiz and Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive). In the end, Hugh Dennis and Steve Punt's show just edged out in front.

Comedy Of The Year: Peep Show

Outnumbered, Gavin & Stacey and The Inbetweeners all had a shot at the top prize this year, however Peep Show just edged ahead in the voting. It was a very close thing so thanks to everyone who cast a vote - they all counted.

Five series in, Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain's show was well on the way to comedy greatness now - few sitcoms can sustain the laughs for 30 episodes without a drop in quality, however we think Peep Show is a definite exception to this rule. If anything, it just keeps getting funnier... this is backed up by the fact that, of the 1000+ hours of new comedy broadcast in 2008, it was the three hours of Peep Show that attracted the most positive votes in the 2008 Comedy.co.uk Awards.

Editors' Award: Bleak Expectations

This is the award the Editors of British Comedy Guide handed to the show, person, channel, or indeed anything else comedy related they thought deserved some extra recognition.

For 2008, we've opted to give our award to a radio show, a genre we are now covering in some depth on the website. There were some great sitcoms on the radio in 2008 but, of them all, Bleak Expectations is the one that made the editors of this website laugh the most. Bleak Expectations is hard to describe as it is so unique - think Victorian England on acid. Writer Mark Evans' scripts are like nothing we've heard before and they're performed with gusto by a top cast. Definitely seek it out!