This is, officially, the funniest joke from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year

It’s that time of year again when we all get to act like comedy critics and pass judgment on the winner of the funniest joke at the annual Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Over three weeks, the Scottish capital transforms into the world’s largest arts festival featuring thousands of performances by musicians, actors, dancers – and plenty of comedians.

And taking a whopping 41% of the public vote, we now know which gag has been selected as the funniest of the festival.

This year it’s a joke by Liverpool comedian and former bartender Adam Rowe from his stand-up show Undeniable.

We reckon it’s a solid effort (especially when you consider that so much of comedy is in the delivery) so don’t judge him too harshly:

“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.”

Explaining how he came up with the punchline, Rowe told the Press Association: 

“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.”

But the fun doesn’t stop there! Here are all the top 10 jokes from the Fringe this year:

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” – and previous winners have included Tim Vine, Stewart Francis and Zoe Lyons.

Dave channel director Luke Hales said: “This year, the news agenda and every day British idiosyncrasies have provided some wonderful opportunities for comedians to use their creative and comic genius in giving us all a giggle.

“As ever, we have enjoyed some quite brilliant one-liners and are delighted to crown Adam Rowe as the recipient of this year’s Dave’s Funniest Joke of the Fringe Award.”

(Image: Getty)