Following the announcement that U&Dave will not be running its Joke of the Fringe competition in Edinburgh this summer, various alternatives have now been announced.
The ISH Edinburgh Comedy Awards have announced that they are now running a 'Joke Of The Fringe' award.
The ISH Awards involves a voluntary panel of judges seeing every eligible comedy show at the Fringe, where 100% of any sponsorship goes to the artists.
Awards Producer Sarah Bowles says "This is something we can do - judge the best joke as we see every comedy show*, no submissions needed, we will see all the shows and we'll pick a top ten of jokes and a winner. Like all our awards, this will just be our judges' opinion, by far the more important thing in Edinburgh is word of mouth about the shows themselves, but hey, it's a bit of fun, and a bit like our inception, we just love plugging holes."
Awards founder Nathan Cassidy (pictured) says, "For the first time we believe at the Fringe, this is a joke competition that's not just one-liners. I love brilliant one-liners, but having a joke competition of one-liners maybe shouldn't be called Joke of the Fringe anyway, perhaps One-liner of the Fringe? This will be best joke of the Fringe, however long or short it is, and if it's too long to print, or indeed the act doesn't want us to print it, of course we won't, we'll just say for example 'We think that person has the best joke of the Fringe and it's about... whatever'. I still think about Glenn Wool's joke years ago about finding a terrorist as one of the funniest jokes I've ever seen at the Fringe, however I'm not sure it would have played that well as a fluff piece the next morning on GMTV. Requiring all jokes to fit into a few words is a bit silly really and just attracts back-lash, it would be like judging an artist contest on who can paint the best Titanic, there is more to great art than one liner. Then again, maybe all Awards are silly, let's not think about that now..."
Sarah Bowles continues, 'In line with our fourth award, new this year, "The Lyons Award for Tech" for which 2024 Best Show Winner Elf Lyons has donated £500 for the prize, we are open to a donation of £500 from any comedian or comedy person who would like to add their name to the 'Joke of the Fringe' Award and as with all our Awards, 100% of sponsorship will go on the prize, but please note, we will be heavily favouring as a sponsor anyone called Dave. Please email [email protected] if you'd like your name on the Award!"
Visit www.edinburghcomedyawards.com for more information.
Also comedian Will Mars has revived his Dave's Joke of the Fringe Award which he ran during the pandemic where he found a bloke called Dave and asked him to choose his favourite joke. Comedians can submit up to 5 of their best one-liner jokes from their 2025 Edinburgh fringe show (any show length) to [email protected] by midday on Monday 11th August.
And Richard Wright's Pegasus Comedy Awards is also adding their own variant on the Joke of the Fringe Award. Traditionally the prize money is 1p but this can fluctuate to £1 depending on what change is available on the day of the awards show
The rules to enter are simple: Submit a joke and the Pegasus Comedy Awards Panel will judge it and pick a winner. The joke should not be from your show this year, it should be from a future show and not a past show. Jokes must be submitted in the correct font. No, we will not tell you what that font is. There is a set limit on how many jokes can enter. No, we will not tell you what that number is. These are the simple rules. There is also one secret, complicated rule. But that’s a secret. Obviously. Entries are now open and can be submitted to [email protected]. The deadline for entries is August 10th 2025.
The award will be handed out at the Pegasus Comedy Awards show that will happen this Edinburgh Fringe festival "at some point. That is yet to be decided. We haven’t sorted that yet. Usually works out fine. Probably after midnight on the last Saturday of the Fringe. We will let you know. If we remember. We will. We’ll let you know."
Picture of Nathan Cassidy by Andrew Hamshare.
