By Ian MacKenzie

EDINBURGH (Reuters) - Australian stand-up comic Brendon Burns won the Edinburgh Fringe festival's top comedy prize for 2007 on Saturday for what the award's director Nica Burns called "an edgy and dangerous show".

Burns, 38, who comes from Melbourne but now lives in Britain, received 8,000 pounds ($16,020) in prize money and the chance to show off his talent in London's West End.

A regular at the Fringe, a raucous accompaniment to the Edinburgh Arts Festival, the biggest annual extravaganza of its kind in the world, Burns won the award for his show "So I Suppose This Is Offensive Now".

The Times newspaper's theatre comedy critic Dominic Maxwell, who also chaired the judging panel, said in a review Burns' "taboo-busting tirades are underwritten by a genuine desire to flush out our prejudices from their hiding places in censure and fear".

Another critic, Wayne Miller, said in a Web review for the British Theatre Guide that Burns' "manic, intelligent mind" had set out to show everyone what was offensive to whom and why.

"He will make you question yourself and your own beliefs, your lifestyle and the consequences of your own mind," said Miller.

Burns phoned his mother in Australia from the stage straight after receiving the award to tell her the news.