Comedian Andrew Maxwell famously once called the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ‘exams for clowns’, and each year it’s the comics with the best jokes who get the ‘A’ grades.
The Edinburgh Comedy Award (formerly the Perrier Award) is handed out each year to the top clown in the class, and in 2008 it was joined by The Funniest Joke of the Fringe Award.
Presented by television channel Dave, each year a shortlist of 10-15 jokes was drawn up by some of the leading comedy critics and comedians in the UK.
Designed to celebrate “the art of joke writing” and making people laugh, the general public then voted for the eventual winner.
Last month it was announced that ‘U&Dave’s Funniest Joke Of The Fringe’ would be scrapped from the 2025 Fringe, with the TV station behind the gong saying it is “resting”.
But both the ISH Comedy Awards and the new ‘(Some Guy Called) Dave Joke of the Fringe’ have stepped into the vacuum to find the finest wisecracks in the Capital’s comedy clubs, lecture hall and pub basements.
Here are the 19 deemed good enough to be shortlisted.
13. Jamie D'Souza
I'm mixed race, it's a bit of a weird mix. I'm Swiss Indian, so Swindian - not from Swindon it's not that bad. I thought at school I'll turn it into a positive and give myself a nickname 'Swiss Chocolate'. It didn't catch on they called me the Bounty instead, you know because I was brown on the outside... and nobody liked me. | Contributed
14. Eric Rushton
My idea was to join a University society, be around people who had the same passion as me. So I joined the comedy society. I could have hung out with the maths kids, I just thought they weren't socially awkward and neurodivergent enough for me. | Contributed
15. Sikisa
A ceiling spider is the worst kind of spider in the world. It's looking at me, I'm looking at it. I'm like 'you know what, you can have the bedroom, I'm gonna go sleep on the sofa.' That was two weeks ago. I feel like sliding a piece of paper under my bedroom door and saying 'hey, can you pay for half the WiFi please?' I mean a spider can afford it, it is a web developer. | Contributed
16. Paul Sinha
I put 20 quid on a horse at 15/1 which was stupid because horses are useless at general knowledge. | Contributed