UKTV’s award-winning entertainment channel Dave has announced the winner of the twelfth annual Dave’s Funniest Joke of the Fringe award. 

Swedish comedian Olaf Falafel’s one-liner about vegetable Tourette’s was voted the winner with: “I keep randomly shouting out 'Broccoli' and 'Cauliflower' - I think I might have Florets”. It was crowned the funniest of the Fringe with 41% of Brits voting it the top tickler, after it was nominated from his show Knitting With Maracas at Laughing Horse @ The Pear Tree. Read a review of his Edinburgh Fringe show here.

With the goal of finding the wittiest one-liners, Dave recruited the help of an expert panel of ten judges, comprising the UK’s leading comedy critics. After touring and scouring hundreds of venues and shows at the renowned Edinburgh Festival Fringe Festival, the panel submitted their favourite six jokes, listed without naming the comics behind each one, to a vote of 2,000 Brits to reveal the funniest. 

Dave’s Top 10 Funniest Jokes of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2019:

1.       I keep randomly shouting out 'Broccoli' and 'Cauliflower' - I think I might have Florets

Olaf Falafel

2.       Someone stole my antidepressants. Whoever they are, I hope they’re happy.”
Richard Stott

3.       What’s driving Brexit? From here it looks like it’s probably the Duke of Edinburgh.

Milton Jones

4.       A cowboy asked me if I could help him round up 18 cows. I said, ‘Yes, of course. That’s 20 cows’.

Jake Lambert

5.       A thesaurus is great. There’s no other word for it

Ross Smith

6.       Sleep is my favourite thing in the world. It’s the reason I get up in the morning

Ross Smith

7.       I accidentally booked myself onto an escapology course; I'm really struggling to get out of it.

Adele Cliff

8.       After learning 6 hours of basic semaphore, I was flagging.

Richard Pulsford

9.       To be or not to be a horse rider, that is Equestrian

Mark Simmons

10.    I’ve got an Eton-themed Advent calendar, where all the doors are opened for me by my dad’s contacts

Ivo Graham

Winner Olaf Falafel is a surrealist comedian and illustrator. Falafel claims that he is Sweden’s 8th funniest comedian. He also works as a children’s book author. He has performed two shows this year at Edinburgh, the first was his children's show It’s One Giant Leek for Mankind and the other is his adult show Knitting with Maracas, which is at 2.50pm at The Pear Tree.

"This is a fantastic honour but it’s like I’ve always said, jokes about white sugar are rare, jokes about brown sugar... Demerara,“ said Falafel.

Now in its twelfth year, previous winners of the coveted award include Ken Cheng, Masai Graham, Tim Vine, Rob Auton, Stewart Francis, Zoe Lyons and Nick Helm.

Luke Hales, Dave channel director, said “What a year it’s been for current affairs and British eccentricities! 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!”

The Dave Joke of the Fringe Panel for 2019 included Steve Bennett (Editor, Chortle.co.uk), Mark Boosey (Editor, British Comedy Guide), Bruce Dessau (Comedy Critic, Evening Standard/beyondthejoke.co.uk), 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.