Chris Cantrill has won the Edinburgh comedy award, the fringe's major prize, for his lunchtime show Rewilding — a spoof whodunnit inspired by the felling of the Sycamore Gap tree. The win arrives on his fourth nomination.

Cantrill, 42, learned of the victory on the festival's penultimate day — and did not perform his final show. The cancellation, it turns out, was long-planned: work begins immediately on the new series of SNL UK, the hit sketch show for which he writes. "I couldn't be happier not to be at the festival today," he said, speaking by video call from his Northumberland home.

The decision to skip his own closing performance did not reflect indifference. "But I'm absolutely over the moon not to be doing my show right now," he admitted. "I've got a lot of adrenaline in my body slowly seeping out, and I feel like I've been hit by a train."

For the last month, Cantrill performed Rewilding daily in a lunchtime slot at Monkey Barrel Comedy. The show transforms one of Britain's most notorious acts of vandalism into comic mystery material.

The award — formerly the Perrier, with past winners including Steve Coogan, The League of Gentlemen and Frank Skinner — has been a long time coming for the Bradford-born comedian. He earned two nominations as a solo act and two as half of the duo The Delightful Sausage, alongside Amy Gledhill, who won the award herself in 2024.

Cantrill is also a comparatively senior winner. At 42, he is the oldest champion since Bridget Christie, also 42, took the prize 13 years ago. When this was put to him, his reply was immediate: "Finally, a victory for the middle-aged white man!" He then burst into laughter. "Common sense at last!"

The former marketing manager now faces an abrupt shift from the Edinburgh circuit to television writing. He has described SNL UK, whose sketches have already drawn attention in its first season, as "the hardest job of my life".

The pairing of the two projects defines Cantrill's moment: a fringe award that took four nominations to secure, and a network sketch show that starts production the moment the festival ends. His Sycamore Gap whodunnit has now closed, but the trains — literal, in his post-victory exhaustion, and professional — keep arriving.