Leicester's new comedy festival will still have a wordplay competition

The replacement for the defunct Leicester Comedy Festival is to maintain an annual pun competition, it has been announced.

Since 2014, the annual event has hosted the UK Pun Championship, with winners including Darren Walsh, Masai Graham and Adele Cliff.

But the collapse of the charity behind the event, Big Difference Company left the future of the competition – as well as more than £215,000 in unpaid bills – in doubt.

Now it has been announced that the alternative UK Pun Off, which promoter Iain MacDonald has been running for seven years across festivals including Leicester and Edinburgh, will be taking on the mantle for 2027.

It will be adopting the same knockout format as its predecessor when it comes to the Independent Comedy Festival on February 6.

However, it will be on a much smaller scale – at the 50-seater James Bistro on Bond Street rather than the De Montfort Hall, which accommodates more than 1,000 around the boxing ring where the contest has previously been staged.

Applications for the 12 tournament spots will go live tomorrow here.

This year’s UK Pun Championship was won by Adam Earnest Pickard with one-liners including:  ‘The song Greensleeves was composed by Henry VIII. I’d play some of it here, but it’s not royalty-free’ and ‘Only women can use the herbal dumbbells. Thyme weights for no man.’

While the UK Pun Off joke of the Edinburgh Fringe competition went to  Chrissy Derbyshire for ‘Did you hear about the new collaboration Sade did with Gilbert & Sullivan? It's a smooth operetta.’

Published: 13 Oct 2026