Comedian Olaf Falafel has won the (Some Guy Called) Dave Joke of the Fringe 2026 with the line: ’I remember thinking, as I taped a piranha to my boomerang, this could come back to bite me.’

Falafel, previously won UKTV’s Dave Joke of the Fringe in 2019, takes home a trophy and £500 cash – having landed hree separate jokes in this year’s top 10 – at numbers one, two and 10.

The Swedish comic, who now lives in Luton,  said: ’I’ve just released a children’s book called Dave, Don’t Give Up! and the synchronicity of now winning the Dave award is astonishing,’ Falafel said.

Comedians performing at the Fringe were invited to submit their best jokes. The one-liner specialists Gary Delaney, Mark Simmons, Darren Walsh and  Milton Jones, then presented to a random Fringe-goer to choose the best.

This year, in a break from tradition, it was not a bloke called Dave but was Jen Woolfson and her friends.

The top 10 jokes of the Fringe 2026 were:

1. I remember thinking, as I taped a piranha to my boomerang, this could come back to Bite Me – Olaf Falafel
2. My paper manufacturing business has folded seven times so I’m pretty sure it can’t happen again – Olaf Falafel
3. My therapist says I’m very judgemental, but what does he know? He lives in a house boat – Spring Day
4. 99 per cent of the poor are workshy thugs. That’s a Conservative estimate – Ed Mulvey
5. It’s hard to get Ozempic, there are a lot of hoops to go through and I didn’t fit through any of them – Adam Greene
6. I did my horse-riding training before I did my philosophy degree. I didn’t want to put Descartes before the horse – David Rose
7. I never understood osmosis. Hard to say why, but whenever my teacher mentioned it my brain went from a level of high concentration to a level of low concentration – Alex Kitson
8. You can learn a lot about camping online but you learn so much more in the field – Roger Swift
9. I’ll never forget the look on my dad’s face, when I told him I had a photographic memory. – Kevin O’Brien
10. I suffer from FOMO. Fear of messing up acronyms. – Olaf Falafel

Falafel is performing two shows at this year’s Fringe: His Stupidest Super Stupid Show: This Time It’s Stupider!, at 11.30am daily at the Counting House, and I Used to Work in a Helium Balloon Factory Until They Let Me Go, at 2.30pm daily at the Pear Tree.

The (some guy called) Dave Joke of the Fringe was created by comedian Will Mars in 2021, when UKTV did not run its traditional Dave Joke of the Fringe competition during the partial post-pandemic Fringe. He brought (some guy called) Dave back in 2025, when UKTV again put its own competition on hold.

Last year’s winner was Andy Gleeks, with: ’I had to visit the trauma unit last weekend. He prefers the term dad.’ The award’s first winner, in 2021, was Masai Graham, with: ’I thought the word Caesarean began with the letter S, but when I looked in the dictionary, it was in the C section.’