The ’10 Funniest Jokes’ of this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival have been named, with comedian Adam Rowe taking the top spot. Check out the full list below.
With the likes of Tim Vine, Stewart Francis and Zoe Lyons all winning in the past, the top spot in recent years has been claimed by Masai Graham in 2016, and Ken Cheng last year.
Now, Rowe has received ‘Dave’s Funniest Joke Of The Fringe’ for the one-liner: “Working at the Jobcentre has to be a tense job – knowing that if you get fired, you still have to come in the next day.”
“Working at the Jobcentre has to be a tense job – knowing that if you get fired, you still have to come in the next day,” Rowe told Manchester Evening News after his win – having taken 41% of the public vote from his ‘Undeniable’ stand-up show.
He continued: “I actually wrote [the joke] when I was on stage when I was hosting a gig in Liverpool. It was a bit of crowd work that stayed with me. I was doing the usual compering thing, asking people what they do for a living.
“A guy said he worked in the Jobcentre and I said the joke that has now won the award. Because it got such a nice reaction on the night I thought I had to do something with it as a line.”
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Rowe added: “I didn’t expect to be winning an award for what was essentially a brain fart!”
The full top 10 is:
1. “Working at the JobCentre has to be a tense job – knowing that if you get fired, you still have to come in the next day” – Adam Rowe
2. “I had a job drilling holes for water – it was well boring” – Leo Kearse
3. “I took out a loan to pay for an exorcism. If I don’t pay it back, I’m going to get repossessed” – Olaf Falafel
4. “In my last relationship, I hated being treated like a piece of meat. She was a vegan and refused to touch me” – Daniel Audritt
5. “What do colour blind people do when they are told to eat their greens?” – Flo and Joan
6. “I’ve got a new job collecting all the jumpers left in the park at the weekends, but it’s not easy. They keep moving the goalposts” – Darren Walsh
7. “Trump said he’d build a wall but he hasn’t even picked up a brick. He’s just another middle-aged man failing on a DIY project” – Justin Moorhouse
8= “I lost a friend after we had an argument about the Tardis. I thought it was a little thing, but it seemed much bigger once we got into it” – Adele Cliff
8= “Why are they calling it Brexit and not The Great British Break Off?” – Alex Edelman
10. “I think love is like central heating. You turn it on before guests arrive and pretend it’s like this all the time” – Laura Lexx