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'I think I have florets': Funniest Joke at the Edinburgh Fringe awarded to Olaf Falafel

Culinary one-liner beat quips about nepotism, cowboys and Brexit  

Jacob Stolworthy
Monday 19 August 2019 07:53 EDT
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Edinburgh Fringe funniest joke award winner Olaf Falafel is funny on camera

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The best joke at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival has been selected – and it’s a vegetable pun.

Swedish comedian Olaf Falafel claimed the coveted honour of Dave’s Funniest Joke At The Fringe award after returning for the seventh time.

The joke he won with is: “I keep randomly shouting out ‘broccoli’ and ‘cauliflower’ – I think I might have florets.”

Two thousand people voted in the poll after a number of jokes were shortlisted by a panel of experts.

Speaking about winning the prize with his one-liner, Falafel said: “It’s been really good fun. I would definitely say that winning this award has been a highlight, and just being able to make people laugh with my stupid jokes.”

He said that deciding to return the festival was like “pregnancy”, quipping: “You go through a lot of pain and then the child is born and enough time passes and you forget about the pain and decide that you fancy having another one, but straight after you’re like ‘I’m never doing that again’.”

Tim Vine, Stewart Francis and Zoe Lyons have all previously won the prestigious award. Adam Rowe won last year’s award 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 award lists jokes anonymously to avoid bias towards well-known comedians. See the full top 10 below.

The top 10 jokes from 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 six 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

You can read all the previous jokes to have won the award here.

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