Birmingham comedian Lovdev Barpaga has been crowned UK Pun Champion 2017, winning the final at the Leicester Comedy Festival.

After the eight acts were narrowed down to the last two of Barpaga and Newcastle comedian Julian Lee Barpaga triumphed in a closely fought head-to-head which took place at De Montfort Hall in a wrestling ring. The audience applause was supposed to select the most popular competitor, but the twosome could not be separated so compere Jason Byrne decided on an ad hoc freestyle session followed by a mic drop to help the crowd make the final decision.

See the full line-up of finalists here.

Full review here.