Edinburgh Comedy Award Winner Sam Nicoresti represents UK at World Air Guitar Championships

7th September 2026

... Comments

After becoming the UK Air Guitar Champion in June of this year, and shortly after a television debut on 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, the comedian travelled to Oulu, Finland to compete in a Air Guitar World Championships against 25 other hopefuls from countries as far flung as Japan and Brazil, ultimately securing Britain a 4th place position, just behind USA and France, who tied for 3rd, and Japan and Finland in the top 2nd and 1st positions. The World Air Guitar Championships were established in 1996 with a mission statement of bringing about world peace, under the motto “Make Air, Not War!” and with the mantra that “You can’t hold a gun whilst you’re holding an air guitar”. This year they celebrated their 30th anniversary, which coincided with Oulu being crowned the European Capital of Culture. To celebrate, the city where the final is hosted constructed a huge stage across the river Oulujoki and staged a three-day festival that played to 20,000 people in the city itself, with a further 50,000 watching online, for a total of 70,000 viewers. Air Guitar is scored using a figure skating system, where a panel of judges award points on a scale of 4.0 to 6.0, based on three criteria: Technical Merit, Stage Presence, and Airness. The World Final is composed of the National Champions and four Dark Horse Competitors selected from a separate competition held the night before. Competitors perform to a pre-selected track of their choice of up to one-minute, the only rule being no props, and the only instrument allowed is an air guitar. From this round, the top 8 progress to a round two final, where they must all perform an improvised routine to a track that they have not heard before the final itself. Sam Nicoresti secured her place in the top 8, the first trans person ever to do so, and ultimately took home 4th place. It is the first time the UK have featured in the World Championships since 2019. The UK Air Guitar competition was run this year by Piers Burnell, who said of the Championship: “Air guitar is about confidence and jumping in at the deep end. The championships are like Eurovision on steroids.” Competitors usually perform under monikers, sometimes developed into fully fledged personas. Sam Nicoresti took part under the stage name Airlo Guv’na, and said of her character: “Airlo is the Queen of the Goblins, a dark monarch forced from her underground kingdom by the destruction wrought by humans on the world above. She wields a six-neck air guitar called The Prismatic Hexad, which is one of the legendary guitars of A’ir, an ancient kingdom of advanced technology whose people lived in a state of raised consciousness and peace. She intends to hunt down more legendary air guitars and use their powers to destroy the Great Evils of Earth, bringing about a Second Republic of A’ir.” She added: “Performing in front of 70,000 people in the name of world peace and getting to raise my devil horns in the name of trans rights, was a once-in-a-lifetime honour I shall take with me from this dimension into the next. I met so many kind, creative and collaborative people during this competition, and their shared belief in a better world was an inspiring message that should remind all of us that acts of kindness do not have to be random, they can be collective and intentional too.” Biography: Hailing from Birmingham, Sam Nicoresti is a writer, performer and the winner of the Edinburgh Comedy Award Best Show 2025. Known for her shows about body horror, cosmic dread, fever dreams, frogs, and skirt suits, Sam broke into stand-up after winning Leicester Square Theatre New Comedian of the Year in 2021. Since then she has released her highly-acclaimed debut art-comedy special Wokeflake, and was nominated for Best Compere at the Chortle Awards 2024. Her second show Baby Doomer was nominated for Best Show at Leicester Comedy Festival 2025 before going on to win the prestigious Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Show at that year’s Edinburgh Fringe, selling out her whole run and receiving rave reviews from critics. Baby Doomer would then transfer to the Soho Theatre in London, where it would have a three week sell out run. Sam subsequently toured the show around the UK in 2026 before taking it to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and LA's Netflix is a Joke festival. Her broadcast credits include appearances on 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, RHLTSP, LMAOF, Radio 4 Extra’s The Comedy Club, and Radio 4’s The Edinburgh Comedy Awards Gala, Unspeakable and credits on The News Quiz. Sam started making shows as part of the northern alternative scene alongside double-act partner Tom Burgess as Sam & Tom, and has been a prominent member of collectives The Glang Show and Weirdos, as well as being involved in the panel-prize winning Iraq: Out & Loud project. Behind the public persona lies a private citizen who likes cats, music, and having a quiet drink in the corner of the pub on a Wednesday night. ‘One of the sharpest, funniest, most exciting hours of comedy at the Fringe.’ ★★★★★ The Telegraph ‘Uproariously funny, life-affirming, angry, dumb, insightful and political all at once.’ ★★★★.5 Chortle ‘An ebullient hour with a sky-high joke count.’ ★★★★ The Guardian ‘An artfully snarky stand-up comedy show.’ ★★★★ The Times

About the Author