An autobiographical one woman theatre show won two awards at the Greater Manchester Fringe Awards 2019; The F**k It Button scooped Best Comedy and Ali Kahn won Best Actor.
Ali, who wrote and performed the show at the King's Arms and was the first show to sell out three nights in 2019, said, "I am still in shock! I set out to prove to myself that I could realise my dream of writing and performing a one woman show. And I did it."
Time and Again Theatre Company won the Oldham Coliseum Award for Clouds, which sold out at the Pankhurst Centre in Rusholme. Clouds will be performed as part of a double bill with Men Chase Women Choose, People Zoo Productions, on September 27 at Oldham Coliseum. Last year's runner up Trollope will also be staged there on October 4.
Greater Manchester Fringe featured 165 shows this year and sold more tickets than 2018. One of the new aspects was The Hive, which had three places up for grabs at a scratch night of 40 shortlisted acts at Salford Arts Theatre in January.
Stefanie Moore won a place in The Hive for her duologue Blue Lines and was mentored by Tim Firth (Calendar Girls and Kinky Boots) and Mike Heath (Write for the Stage). Simon Widdop won a place for his spoken word show Stained and was mentored by Ben Moor.
Siân Davies won a place for her comedy show About Time and was mentored by Dave Williams. She then went on to win the Funny Women awards semi-final in Manchester and will compete in the final on September 19 at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London.