Adam Rowe
Monday 20 August
- Comedian Adam Rowe wins 'Dave's Funniest Joke of The Fringe' Award with joke about the challenges of being fired
- Jokes were shortlisted by a panel of UK's foremost comedy critics from shows at this year's Fringe and anonymously voted for by the British public
- Top 10 jokes from comedians including Flo and Joan, Olaf Falafel, Adele Cliff and previous winner Darren Walsh
- Jokes about veganism, Trump, Brexit and Dr Who's Tardis all feature in the winning witticisms
- 2018 sees Dave's Funniest Joke of the Fringe awarded for the eleventh time
Images of Adam Rowe and his award to download here.
UKTV's award-winning entertainment channel Dave has announced the winner of the eleventh annual Dave's Funniest Joke of the Fringe award.
Adam Rowe's witticism about the irony of being fired from a job centre was voted the winner:
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.
It was crowned the funniest of the Fringe with 41% of Brits voting it the top tickler, after it was nominated from his show Undeniable at Just The Tonic @ The Caves.
In its mission to find the most hilarious one-liners, Dave enlisted the help of an expert panel of ten judges, consisting of the UK's foremost comedy critics. They scoured venues at the world-famous Edinburgh Festival Fringe to nominate their six favourite jokes, with the shortlisted gags, which are listed anonymously, then voted on by 2,000 Brits to reveal the jokes they found funniest.
Dave's Top 10 Funniest Jokes of the Fringe Festival 2018:
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: 41%
2. I had a job drilling holes for water - it was well boring. Leo Kearse: 34%
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: 29%
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: 28%
5. What do colour blind people do when they are told to eat their greens? Flo and Joan: 26%
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: 25%
6.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: 25%
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: 24%
8. Why are they calling it Brexit and not The Great British Break Off? Alex Edelman: 24%
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: 24%
__
Winner Adam Rowe first got on stage to do stand-up comedy in 2010. A little over a year later, he was named Liverpool Comedian of the Year, quit his bar job and pursued a comedy career. He has been touring with his Undeniable tour this year.
On his joke claiming the top spot, Adam Rowe said:
I'm absolutely over the moon and quite blown away by this! It's my favourite joke in the show, as it ends the bit I'm most passionate about; trying to dispel a few myths of what it's like to be brought up on benefits. It's such a huge honour, I really never expected to be in with a shout of winning things like this, so it's just a massive but lovely surprise. Thank you very much!
Now in its eleventh year, previous winners of the coveted award include Ken Cheng, Masai Graham, Tim Vine, Rob Auton, Stewart Francis, Zoe Lyons and Nick Helm.
The Dave award, which is open to both established and up-and-coming comedians, pays homage to the wealth of talent on offer at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and shines a spotlight on the skill of writing a cracking one-liner. To ensure that there is no bias towards well-known or favourite comedians during the public vote, the jokes are listed with no reference to the comedian that wrote and performed them - meaning it is purely judged on the humour of the jokes themselves.
Luke Hales, Dave channel director, said:
This year, the news agenda and every day British idiosyncrasies have provided some wonderful opportunities for comedians to use their creative and comic genius in giving us all a giggle. As ever, we have enjoyed some quite brilliant one-liners and are delighted to crown Adam Rowe as the recipient of this year's Dave's Funniest Joke of the Fringe Award!
The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is widely acknowledged to be the biggest arts festival in the world and takes place every August for three weeks in Scotland's capital city.
2018 marks the eleventh year of Dave's Funniest Joke of the Fringe. You can also follow Dave on Twitter: @davechannel, Facebook: @davetvchannel and Instagram: @dave_tvchannel.
For more information contact Alex Butler at Taylor Herring PR AB@taylorherring.com
The 2018 Edinburgh Fringe Festival takes place 3rd - 27th August 2018.
The Dave Joke of the Fringe Panel_
The Dave Panel for 2018 included Steve Bennett (Editor, Chortle.co.uk), Mark Boosey (Editor, British Comedy Guide), Bruce Dessau (Comedy Critic, Evening Standard), Brian Donaldson (Comedy Critic, The Scotsman; Comedy Editor, The List), Mark Monahan (Arts Editor, Daily Telegraph), Sarah Henley (Director, ComComedy.com), Veronica Lee (comedy journalist, The Arts Desk), Sharon Lougher (Comedy Reviewer, Metro), Kate Stone (Editor, FunnyWomen.co.uk) and Mark Wareham (Comedy Reviewer, Mail on Sunday).
The Dave panel each submitted their six 'best jokes' nominations. These were then put anonymously to a vote of 2,000 Brits who chose their funniest one-liners.
About Dave
@davechannel
Sky 155, Freeview 17, BT & TalkTalk 17, Freesat 160, Virgin
On demand on Sky and UKTV Play
Since bursting onto TV sets in 2007, Dave has been putting in hours at the gym and is now a beefed-up powerhouse of brand new and original commissions from some of the biggest stars and production companies in entertainment. Romesh Ranganthan, Jon Richardson and YouTube sensation Yianni Charalambous are just some of the latest additions to the channel's ever-increasing slate.
Whether it's innovative comedy entertainment like the BAFTA and Emmy-nominated Taskmaster, Unspun with Matt Forde, and Dara o Briain's Go 8 Bit or scripted sitcoms including the worldwide hit Red Dwarf, Zapped, and Porters, Dave's guaranteed to work your funny bone like never before.
Dave's also committed to bringing live sport back to free-to-air and has an ongoing deal to show fights from David Haye's Hayemaker Ringstar venture. There's also Red Bull Soapbox, Cop Car Workshop, Sin City Motors and a whole host of much loved programming, all shot with Dave's unique personality that's led to the channel reaching 20million adults a month.
About UKTV
UKTV is a commercial broadcaster reaching nearly 40m viewers every month.
The award-winning independent has eleven imaginative brands - UKTV Play, Dave, W, Gold, Alibi, Yesterday, Drama, Really, Home, Eden and Good Food. These include the two most popular non-PSB channels in the UK and account for nearly 10% of the British commercial TV market.
The network delivers inspired channels to audiences through Freeview, Sky, BT, TalkTalk, YouView, Freesat, Amazon Fire and UKTV Play, and distributes its highly valued original programmes to 200 territories.
Now celebrating over 20 years at the forefront of digital television, UKTV - an independent commercial joint venture between BBC Studios and Discovery, Inc. - is proud to be the first British television broadcaster in The Sunday Times top 100 companies list.