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Sunday May 05, 2024

Edinburgh's Fringe Festival's joke of year award goes to Lorna Rose Treen's zookeeper quip

Lorna Rose Treen is the first female comedian to win the accolade since Zoe Lyons' first Fringe Joke award in 2008

By Web Desk
August 22, 2023
A group of performers from the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. — Edinburgh Fringe/File
A group of performers from the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. — Edinburgh Fringe/File

The Fringe festival is one of the greatest celebrations of arts and culture which takes place every August in Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital city. Amongst many shows of performance arts, Edinburgh's Joke of the Fringe is dedicated to star comedians.

Like every year, it brought out many chucklesome one-liners and puns.

Here are the top 10 jokes from this year's Fringe festival.

Fringe's top 10 jokes

  1. I started dating a zookeeper, but it turned out he was a cheetah — Lorna Rose Treen
  2. The most British thing I've ever heard? A lady who said 'Well I'm sorry, but I don't apologise.' — Liz Guterbock
  3. Last year I had a great joke about inflation. But it's hardly worth it now — Amos Gill
  4. When women gossip we get called bitchy; but when men do it's called a podcast — Sikisa
  5. I thought I'd start off with a joke about The Titanic - just to break the ice. — Masai Graham
  6. How do coeliac Germans greet each other? Gluten tag. — Frank Lavender
  7. My friend got locked in a coffee place overnight. Now he only ever goes into Starbucks, not the rivals. He's Costa-phobic. — Roger Swift
  8. I entered the 'How not to surrender' competition and I won hands down. — Bennett Arron
  9. Nationwide must have looked pretty silly when they opened their first branch. — William Stone
  10. My grandma describes herself as being in her "twilight years" which I love because they're great films. — Daniel Foxx

The funniest joke at this year's Edinburgh Fringe was about an unfaithful zookeeper.

Comedian Lorna Rose Treen was chosen as the winner because of her pun: "I started dating a zookeeper, but it turned out he was a cheetah."

From a shortlist compiled by judges, the public selected the funniest joke of the Fringe.

44% of the people surveyed thought the zookeeper one-liner was one of the best.

Lorna is the first female comedian to win the accolade since Zoe Lyons' first Fringe Joke award in 2008.

She described herself as "blooming chuffed" at learning her joke was the winner.

"A huge thank you for awarding my stupid joke with this title!" she said.

A University of Edinburgh graduate and former BBC production trainee, Lorna has also spent time studying theatre and clowning at Ecole Philippe Gaulier in Paris.