Kev Mud has been crowned winner at The UK Pun Championships. The final took place at De Montfort Hall as part of this year's Leicester Comedy Festival.
Joining Kev in the ring were: returning contestant Daniel Edison as well as new contenders Kat Dellar, Adam Dorr, Bennet Kavanagh, Kev Mud, Mary Cross, Pauline Eyre and Rabiah Coon. The event was hosted by Jason Byrne.
The newly crowned champion Kev Mud was delighted with the win and said: “I feel really proud to be UK Pun Champion for 2024, I don't usually write puns and I've only been going for just over a year, but comedy has given me the chance to make a lot of people laugh, and what's better than that?' Also, I live in a caravan and I couldn't turn down a night of free heating.”
Some of the puns that helped Kev Mud take the crown were:
- "I can't go to the toilet without taking candles. I'm a party pooper." -
- "I was at a kid's party and they said, "there's an ice cream man outside' but by the time I got out there he had melted".
- "What do Pompeii and Kim Kardashian have in common? Nobody would have heard of them if it wasn't for their massive ash!
Since its introduction in 2014, The UK Pun Championships has become a huge part of Leicester Comedy Festival – Europe’s largest comedy gala and now in its 31st year. A celebration of the great British pun, contestants enter from across the UK to compete in a battle that takes place in a real boxing ring, surrounded by a boisterous live audience.
Host Jason Byrne picked topics at random on the night and competitors then took it in turns to pun about that particular subject. The audience voted for their preferred pun by wooping and cheering and the favourite then went through to the next round. Ultimately, the two finalists Kev Mud and Daniel Edison battled it out until the overall winner was crowned.
The 2023 winner Lee Brace attended the show to handover the Championship Belt to Kev Mud. The belt was originally designed and commissioned by Cornish stand-up and YouTuber Colin Leggo, who was the 2019 champion of The UK Pun Championships.
Michael Harris-Wakelam, Big Difference Company, CEO said “Is there anything more uniquely British than a pun? The UK Pun Championships is one of the events that we know everyone in our comedy community marks their calendar for. Having seen the applications for this year’s edition, it’s no surprise to see such a strong line up on stage once again at De Montfort Hall. It’s often seen as a specialist area of comedy, but the joy of puns is that they are so easily delivered and remembered and so anybody can have a go and join in with this celebration of puns!”
The pun-testants who battled it out for this year’s crown were:
Kat Dellar
Daniel Edison
Adam Dorr
Bennet Kavanagh
Kev Mud
Mary Cross
Pauline Eyre
Rabiah Coon
The UK Pun Championship also spawned the social media phenomenon which is #UKPunDay; a day that champions Britain’s love of puns and wordplay, and which now takes place every year on the second Monday of February. Whether online, in the press or at Leicester Comedy Festival itself, everyone is invited to get on board the pun train, share punbelievable newspaper headlines, punspired shop names from around the country and shamelessly milk the cheers and groans that makes punning marvellous fun.
The Leicester Comedy Festival runs until February 25. Details here.
Pictured l - r: Jason Byrne, Kev Mud, Lee Brace. Picture by David Wilson Clarke/Crosscut Media
