Durban comedian Carvin Goldstone won big at the eighth annual Savanna Comics’ Choice Awards, but says he hasn’t accepted the accolades yet. Goldstone won the Savanna Comic of the Year and Flying Solo awards.
He says the awards, in general, are an acknowledgement in your work. “It’s a good way to say that we’ve seen what you’ve done, and we respect what you’ve done, especially from your colleagues, as these are peer-reviewed,” he said.
His victory came on the back fiery disagreements with the organisers back in July when he raised concerns about the nominations of certain comics, who he said had not met the criteria to be shortlisted.
“In my case, I haven’t accepted the awards as yet, because I requested an auditing process when the nominations were released back in July. Because the audit hasn’t come through, until that point, I am not officially accepting the award,” he said.
The funnyman told DESTINY MAN that the organisers have promised in July that the auditing will be done. He reckoned that he had personally asked them to postpone the awards until the auditing is done. “I thought maybe they were going to release them (auditing results) before the awards, but they haven’t released anything.”
He says there is a need for awards in South Africa, but that they should be transparent. “I want an award that is audited not just by people in the industry – we can’t be self-regulated. Even if you enter the competition, there are rules, peer rules around conflict of interest – if you are involved in the running of the awards, you can’t enter. If you are running the awards, you can’t have people that you are managing entering the awards or you can, and we can all agree that it’s fine.
“To make sure that the regulation is proper, it must be done by an independent body – someone we know.
“As comedians, we should stick to the jokes and leave the auditing to the auditors – just my view, we shouldn’t be auditing our own thing,” he said.
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