Edinburgh Fringe 2019: Vegetable pun named funniest joke of festival

The "funniest" jokes from this year's Edinburgh Fringe have been revealed.
(Photo: Alan Powdrill)(Photo: Alan Powdrill)
(Photo: Alan Powdrill)

Swedish comedian Olaf Falafel won Dave's prestigious award for "Funniest Joke of The Fringe" award with a brassica-based pun.

"I keep randomly shouting out 'Broccoli' and 'Cauliflower' - I think I might have florets".

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The joke was taken from Falafel's show, One Giant Leek For Mankind.

The comic - who claims to be "Sweden's 8th funniest" comedian - said: "This is a fantastic honour but it's like I've always said, jokes about white sugar are rare, jokes about brown sugar... demerara."

Ten jokes made the 2019 shortlist. Here are the runners-up:

"Someone stole my antidepressants. Whoever they are, I hope they're happy" - Richard Stott

"What's driving Brexit? From here it looks like it's probably the Duke of Edinburgh" - Milton Jones

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"A cowboy asked me if I could help him round up 18 cows. I said, 'Yes, of course. - That's 20 cows'" - Jake Lambert

"A thesaurus is great. There's no other word for it" - Ross Smith

"Sleep is my favourite thing in the world. It's the reason I get up in the morning" - Ross Smith

"I accidentally booked myself onto an escapology course; I'm really struggling to get out of it" - Adele Cliff

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"After learning six hours of basic semaphore, I was flagging - Richard Pulsford

"To be or not to be a horse rider, that is Equestrian" - Mark Simmons

"I've got an Eton-themed advent calendar, where all the doors are opened for me by my dad's contacts" - Ivo Graham

The award - which has previously been awarded to comedians like Ken Cheng, Masai Graham, Tim Vine, Rob Auton, Stewart Francis, Zoe Lyons and Nick Helm - is decided by a panel of 10 judges, made up of the UK's leading comedy critics.

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They trawl through hundreds of shows at the Edinburgh Fringe, and submit their favourite six gags.

The jokes are then listed anonymously, and 2,000 members of the public are invited to choose the funniest; Falafel won with 41% of the vote.

"What a year it's been for current affairs and British eccentricities!" said Luke Hales, Dave channel director.

"The comedic opportunities to be creative are endless and above all we've all needed a good laugh in 2019.

"We have really enjoyed the great anecdotes and one liners submitted this year and we couldn't be happier to crown Olaf Falafel as the winner of this year's Dave's Funniest Joke of the Fringe Award!"

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