There's a very Country Life feel to several of the best jokes at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year. Here are the top 10 — as voted by the public — as well as one or two of our other favourites.
Each year, the list of the top jokes at the Edinburgh Festival draws plenty of attention — and the winner this year has a real country feel: ‘I keep randomly shouting out “Broccoli’ and ‘Cauliflower” – I think I might have Florets.’
The one-liner about cauliflower and broccoli fought off competition from gags about Brexit, maths and nepotism to be crowned Edinburgh Fringe Festival’s funniest joke.
The vegetable pun by Swedish comedian Olaf Falafel received 41% of the public votes after it was nominated from his show It’s One Giant Leek For Mankind at The Pear Tree.
Olaf Falafel, winner of the ‘best joke’ award at the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe.
The twelfth annual Dave’s Funniest Joke of the Fringe award featured an expert panel of ten judges, comprising the UK’s leading comedy critics.
To ensure that there was no bias towards well-known or favourite comedians during the public vote, the jokes were listed with no reference to the comedian who wrote and performed them — meaning it was purely judged on the humour of the jokes themselves.
The top 10 (printable) jokes of the Fringe Festival were named as follows.
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‘I keep randomly shouting out “Broccoli’ and ‘Cauliflower” – I think I might have Florets.’
Olaf Falafel -
‘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 -
‘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 -
‘After learning 6 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
On claiming the top spot, Olaf 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.’
While Olaf’s vegetable joke took the top spot in the Dave competition, it failed to make the cut in the Telegraph’s alternative pick of the funniest one-liners.
It asked comedians to choose their favourite jokes from this year’s festival and among the selection were gags about wide-ranging topics from Brexit to Harry Potter.
One of our favourites came from a comedian called Goose — aka Adam Drake — in his one-man sketch show at The Assembly in George Square.
- ‘My mate came second in a Winston Churchill lookalike competition. He was close, but no cigar.’
The Telegraph’s list also had several country, wildlife, environment and and farming-themed jokes:
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‘A new eco-opera, Rainforest Ocean Blue, is a disaster. The tenor in particular is dreadful. An aria – The Sighs of Whales – is being destroyed every night…’
Simon Evans -
‘Nothing makes sense to me. We live in a world where we cut down trees to make birdhouses out of wood.’
Archie Maddocks -
‘I like to watch Love Your Garden when I have my tea and then True Crime before bed. I feel really confident being able to bury a body and know what to plant on top of it.’
Lucy Beaumont
Not all of them hit the mark, however…
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‘A new eco-opera, Rainforest Ocean Blue, is a disaster. The tenor in particular is dreadful. An aria – The Sighs of Whales – is being destroyed every night…’
Simon Evans
Oh dear. Edinburgh Fringe? Maybe it should be the Edinburgh Cringe.
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