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Adam Rowe has scooped this year's Dave Joke Of The Fringe award.

The Liverpudlian stand-up won with his gag: ‘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.’

He won a vote of 2,000 people after being nominated by a panel of ten comedy critics.

The full top ten gags were: 

1. 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. Adam Rowe 

2. I had a job drilling holes for water - it was well boring. Leo Kearse

3.I  took out a loan to pay for an exorcism. If I don’t pay it back, I’m going to get repossessed. Olaf Falafel 

4. In my last relationship, I hated being treated like a piece of meat. She was a vegan and refused to touch me. Daniel Audritt

5. What do colour blind people do when they are told to eat their greens? Flo and Joan

6. I’ve got a new job collecting all the jumpers left in the park at the weekends, but it's not easy. They keep moving the goalposts. Darren Walsh

7. Trump said he’d build a wall but he hasn’t even picked up a brick. He’s just another middle-aged man failing on a DIY project. Justin Moorhouse 

8= I lost a friend after we had an argument about the Tardis. I thought it was a little thing, but it seemed much bigger once we got into it. Adele Cliff 

8= Why are they calling it Brexit and not The Great British Break Off? Alex Edelman

10. I think love is like central heating. You turn it on before guests arrive and pretend it's like this all the time. Laura Lexx 

Rowe – who has been a stand-up fo seven years – said: ‘I’m absolutely over the moon and quite blown away by this!

‘It's my favourite joke in the show, as it ends the bit I'm most passionate about; trying to dispel a few myths of what it's like to be brought up on benefits.  

‘It's such a huge honour, I really never expected to be in with a shout of winning things like this, so it's just a massive but lovely surprise. Thank you very much’

Now in its eleventh year, previous winners of the coveted award include Ken Cheng, Masai Graham, Tim Vine, Rob Auton, Stewart Francis, Zoe Lyons and Nick Helm.

Dave channel director Luke Hales said Luke Hales: ‘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.’

Rowe’s joke comes from his show Undeniable, which is on at Just The Tonic @ The Caves. 

Published: 20 Aug 2018