My job’s a joke
COMEDY FANS DELIVER THEIR VERDICTS
Scouse comic’s witty one-liner voted best gag of this year’s Fringe
A JOKE about the irony of being fired from a Jobcentre has been named the funniest gag 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 per cent 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.
On winning the award, he 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.
“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.”
The award, which was voted on by 2000 people, lists jokes anonymously to avoid any bias towards well-known comedians.
Dave channel director Luke Hales said: “As ever, we have enjoyed some quite brilliant one-liners.”