Joke about Jobcentre named the funniest at this year's Edinburgh Fringe

Comedian Adam Rowe has won the 11th annual award for Dave’s Funniest Joke Of The Fringe in Edinburgh (Picture: PA)
Comedian Adam Rowe has won the 11th annual award for Dave’s Funniest Joke Of The Fringe in Edinburgh (Picture: PA)

A joke about being sacked from a Jobcentre has been named the funniest of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Adam Rowe won the 11th annual award for Dave’s Funniest Joke Of The Fringe with the line: “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.”

The joke from Rowe’s show Undeniable won with 41% of a public vote on a shortlist of gags picked by comedy critics.

Former bartender Rowe began doing stand-up in 2010 and has previously been crowned Liverpool Comedian of the Year.

Rowe’s joke about a Jobcentre was the winning gag (Picture: PA)
Rowe’s joke about a Jobcentre was the winning gag (Picture: PA)

On winning the award, Rowe said: “I thought my agent was lying. He rang me and told me I couldn’t tell anyone for a week which has been almost impossible.

“I’m massively taken aback by it, I’ve never seen myself as being in the running for things like this.

“It’s a massive honour and a genuinely huge surprise.”

Explaining how he came up with the punchline, Rowe said: “I actually wrote it when I was on stage when I was hosting a gig in Liverpool.

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“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.

“I didn’t expect to be winning an award for what was essentially a brain fart!”

Previous winners of the award include Tim Vine, Stewart Francis and Zoe Lyons.

Maths student Ken Cheng won last year’s prize with the line: “I’m not a fan of the new pound coin, but then again, I hate all change.”

Thousands gathered in Edinburgh for this year’s Fringe (Picture: PA)
Thousands gathered in Edinburgh for this year’s Fringe (Picture: PA)

The award, which was voted on by 2,000 people, lists jokes anonymously to avoid any bias towards well-known comedians.

Dave channel director Luke Hales 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.”

Here are the top 10 jokes from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 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

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