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There's a scene in the film Festival, which always made me laugh. Daniela Nardini, as an intrepid arts reporter, is hiding under a table, reporting live from a drunken, late night comedy awards ceremony which has turned into a near riot.

While I've never had to hide under a table, I have attended many of those late night ceremonies where it's not just the beer that's bitter, and it's not just the drunk who can't look you in the eye.

Put it down to festival fatigue, the lateness of the announcement (they were generally held after midnight to allow performers to get their post-show) or the fact that it's the end of a whole month of festival activity, but they were always strained and stressful events.

Fast forward to this weekend - and the announcement of the inaugural Foster's Edinburgh Comedy Award winners.

Those with a long memory will remember this was once the Perrier award - indeed Fosters have produced an elegant Top Trumps pack featuring many of the previous winners, like Cambridge Footlights (featuring a young Emma Thompson, Stephen Fry and Hugh Lawrie), Dylan Moran and Al Murray, who handed out this year's gongs.

It's had its ups and downs in the last few years, losing its long-term sponsor, then its new sponsor after just three years.

Director Nica Burns stepped in with her own money last year to secure the event while she tried to find a sponsor who, in her own words, was "the right match".

The lager company Fosters - with its long-term use of comedy in its marketing - was the one she was waiting for and despite the fact that the sponsor promotes beer, rather than fizzy water, the awards ceremony on Saturday afternoon was a nicely mellow affair.

The sun shone, there was a barbecue (Australian, you see) and there were as many people sipping coffee or bottled water, as the bottles of "amber nectar" being handed out for free.

Perhaps the performers are mellower too. Nominee Josie Long buried her head in her boyfriend's chest and said: "I just wish they'd say the other guy's name and get it over with."

All in all, it was a nicer kind of tension.

In the end, the winner was Russell Kane for his show Smokescreens and Castles - third time lucky too, as this was his third outing as a nominee.

Before he posed for photographers and did interviews, he had to phone his mum. Bless.

Daniela Nardini's reporter could clamber out from under that table, pour a cuppa and pull up a chair. All is well in the world of Edinburgh comedy.

And the only friction - a complaint by comedian Stewart Lee about the search for an Edinburgh comedy god - was also smoothed out when the obscure Japanese karaoke outfit the Frank Chickens, won the title.

Lee, who's been appearing on the Fringe since 1987, thought the notion of attaching a brand to a celebrity, a poor one.

To be fair, it was just one email, in which he suggested people would be better voting for an obscure and forgotten act - but in the last few weeks, that's grown into a viral campaign and last night, the Frank Chickens, who appeared just once at the festival in the mid 80s and regard themselves as performance artists rather than comedians, were officially named comedy gods.

Which brings things nicely full circle for me this festival.

For it was, as a young reporter on Glasgow's Evening Times in the mid 80s, that I was dispatched to interview the Frank Chickens.

Like many Glaswegians, I'd never been to "the festival", had no idea there was more than one, had no notion to go until I was dispatched.

I got off the train, went to assembly rooms where I saw their show, did the interview and got back on the train.

It took me another decade to return to the festival - although it took the Frank Chickens even longer. Welcome back! And congratulations.