The newly named Melbourne International Comedy Festival Award for the most outstanding show was awarded to the British comedian James Acaster in a ceremony in Melbourne on Saturday.

Acaster won the award for his show Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999. Also nominated for the award were Cassie Workman, Anne Edmonds, Geraldine Hickey, Nath Valvo and Tom Allen. It was presented by the prize’s first winners, comedy duo Miss Itchy, who won it in 1998.

“What’s weird is I’ve been really rude to Melbourne audiences all my life, telling them their festival is a piece of shit,” Acaster said to applause. “I feel like I don’t deserve this.”

A Guardian review of the winning show from its 2018 London run called it a routine “burnished to gem-like perfection, every phrase and pause chiselled and grooved to maximise the surprise”.

“It was an incredible field and it was genuinely tight, but James’s show was so accomplished,” the Melbourne comedy festival director, Susan Provan, told the Guardian. “There was rolling laughter all the way though, despite addressing serious personal issues. He owned that room.”

The announcement closes a controversial week for the festival and the award, which was previously known as the Barry Award after the veteran performer Barry Humphries. Earlier this week it was announced that Humphries’ name would be dropped from the prize after two decades.

Seven other awards were also announced in a ceremony peppered with barbs about Humphries and the name change.

The Best Newcomer award went to Blake Freeman for his show There’s Something There. The Piece of Wood Award – a literal piece of wood covered in the teeth marks of previous winners – was awarded to Geraldine Hickey. The Golden Gibbo, for an independent show that “pursues the artists’ idea more than it pursues commercial gain”, was awarded to Joshua Ladgrove for his meta-comic show Neal Portenza is Joshua Ladgrove.

Geraldine Hickey won the Melbourne International Comedy Festival’s Piece of Wood Award. Photograph: Jim Lee/Melbourne International Comedy Festival

“I presumed Barry Humphries would be presenting this, or at least Austen Tayshus,” said Portenza.

The Pinder Prize, which is a grant for performers headed to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August, was awarded to Steph Tisdell and Sam Taunton. And the Director’s Choice Award, for an outstanding show not otherwise nominated, went to Aaron Chen.

Explaining the decision to rename the top award in a comment to the Herald Sun, Provan said that Humphries’ remarks about transgender people were a factor in the decision.

“I think those comments were hurtful and inappropriate. It doesn’t represent all of his humour but I don’t know what he was driving at,” said Provan.

With the transgender performer Cassie Workman’s show Giantess, which details her coming out, nominated for the award, the association with Humphries was seen as no longer appropriate.

Many high-profile comedians have come out in support of the name change. On Channel 10’s The Project, co-host Peter Helliar remarked this move was about the festival “putting their arm around the community and saying, to the LGBTQI community in particular... that you are loved and you are safe”. Previous winner Zoe Coombs Marr described it as a “massive win” for comedy.

But aside from a few jokes from comedians on stage, the name change wasn’t formally addressed in the ceremony.

“A lot of the controversy has been extended by people who aren’t closely connected to the creation of the festival at all,” Provan told the Guardian. “The people who create the festival and care about the festival are the artists and performers.”

The Melbourne International Comedy Festival comes to a close on Sunday night.