It is with deep regret must announce the sad passing of Amanda Whitehead.

Amanda often known as Mandy will sadly be missed by the reviewing family she often championed women comedians especially on their debut acts.

The Derek Awards team have therefor decided to have a memorial award at this years Fringe in her honour.

we would like to receive nominations for debut women comedians please feel free to send any nominations to ourselves.

Her fiancé Donald Makin has written this tribute and his words are better than ours.

Amanda went by Mandy on the radio!

She started off as a comedy and film reviewer in Dublin doing red carpet premieres and not being scared to be honest about what she saw.

At the start she freelanced having trained as a journalist and then went on to found the Comedy Scoop her own website.

She started by chatting to some who became big names like Foil Arms and Hogg.

She championed new comedy comedians taking a punt taking to the stage for the first time to tell their story and make you see the world differently or get an insight.

After working behind the scenes at Dublin City FM she became a presenter for cover and then a full presenter on Good Morning Dublin on Dublin City FM covering all the events going on focusing on comedy as well as other culture. Her comedy feature was the place to find out not only about shows but what was going on in the Dublin comedy scene.

She still did reviews too! Her website kept on and she freelanced for different websites. So was very busy in between her dayjob.

Then Tedfest needed a press officer and she took over the pr for Father Ted Festival as it did shows in London and in Edinburgh with even an appearance on BBC radio.

She met Donald her partner at that time and moved to Fife making a home her dog Toby and started blogging as well as making connections with comedy in Scotland.

On Radio West Fife, she worked with Donald on features and radio as well as her own show Mandy's Chinwag focusing on comedy and well being.

Donald had already started on the Edinburgh Fringe for his show and she joined him doing chats for 8 years for radio with everyone from Angela Scanlon to Joanne McInally to Zoe Lyons to Jim Tavare to Phil Cornwall.

She always asked about the issues of the day too with these comedians.

The chats went out over the fringe and as part of having a press pass and her outlook Amanda always wanted someone who had a story to tell giving the fringe a punt and always found that debut comedian or two for the radio.

Later on a move to k107fm followed with her own show the K Town Magazine and later on helping produce Donald's show D's Late Sunday Lunch continuing the work on the fringe.

Through the work on the fringe the performers she chatted to have gone on to bigger shows - partly due to the interest and support she gave them in championing them. As Poppy said if wasn't for Amanda she not be back at the fringe!

Amanda was always in the corner of comedians and there for a kind word as well as helping them get some coverage in to help crazy world of the Edinburgh Fringe.

We love a memorial for Mandy and the Mandy's Comedy Debut Award is taking nominations - that's right as she would have wanted she wants to hear who you want to see!

So for this award if you or you know someone has a unique story to tell, even in a unique way (as she loved things a bit different), that is funny thought provoking says something and is comedy then nominate yourself for the Mandy Debut.

We're not looking for stand up comedy of one liners - this is if you have to tell your life story and come to the fringe for the first time to tell it that's who we like to hear for this award.