Chinese comedian wins top award for joke about pound coin

A British-born Chinese comedian has scooped the prize for the funniest joke at this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

28-year-old Ken Cheng's one-liner about the UK's recent currency upgrade won him first prize in the tenth annual Dave's Funniest Joke of The Fringe competition. (Dave, if you were curious, is a TV channel.)

Cheng's joke was: "I'm not a fan of the new pound coin, but then again, I hate all change"

Cheng said he came up with the joke when the British government announced plans for the new 12-sided pound coin in 2014. The joke earned 33 percent of the public vote, besting entries from British comedy heavyweights.

His festival set — Ken Cheng: Chinese Comedian — was the comedian's debut at Edinburgh.

1、What is the Fringe

The nearly month-long Edinburgh Fringe Festival is considered the largest arts festival in the world.

A panel of 10 comedy critics and reviewers selected a shortlist of one-liners from the festival, then 2,000 British people voted on which was the funniest.

The comedians' names were left out, to keep celebrity from overshadowing.

Up-and-coming comedians spend much of the year preparing for Edinburgh, where they hope to catch the eye of television executives who mine the Fringe for new talent.

"The Joke of The Fringe award is such a prestigious thing," Cheng said. "I was just very honored to be on the list, it's good company to be in.

"As a tribute, I will name my firstborn son after this award and call him 'Joke of the Fringe'."

2、The comedian who quit Cambridge

Cheng studied mathematics at Cambridge University in 2007, before dropping out to pursue a career as a poker player.

He described his sets as "funny TED Talks" that have little practical value. He uses logic and wit to dismantle words and phrases, uncovering the absurd in everyday speech.

Cheng has spoken of the similarities between comedy and poker. "The two fields of poker and comedy actually have a surprising amount in common," he said. "The first similarity is how both are based around a constant barrage of either extreme punishment or reward. In poker, it's money; in comedy, it's laughs."

Cheng — whose parents are both Chinese — said that while his sets don't regularly draw from his ethnic identity, being viewed as different to his peers has influenced his work.

"I was a bit of an outsider, not in a bad way, but I didn't feel like I needed to be like everyone else," he said. "Often that's where people's humor comes from — being different."

His breakthrough onto the British comedy scene came in 2015 when he reached the final of the BBC New Comedy Award. His six-minute set — a deconstruction of the proverb "kill two birds with one stone" — amassed more than half a million views on YouTube.

3、10 funniest jokes from Fringe 2017

• "I'm not a fan of the new pound coin, but then again, I hate all change" - Ken Cheng

• "Trump's nothing like Hitler. There's no way he could write a book" - Frankie Boyle

• "I've given up asking rhetorical questions. What's the point?" - Alexei Sayle

• "I'm looking for the girl next door type. I'm just gonna keep moving house till I find her" - Lew Fitz

• "I like to imagine the guy who invented the umbrella was going to call it the 'brella'. But he hesitated" - Andy Field

• "Combine Harvesters. And you'll have a really big restaurant" - Mark Simmons

• "I'm rubbish with names. It's not my fault, it's a condition. There's a name for it..." - Jimeoin

• "I have two boys, 5 and 6. We're no good at naming things in our house" - Ed Byrne

• "I wasn't particularly close to my dad before he died... which was lucky, because he trod on a land mine" - Olaf Falafel

• "Whenever someone says, 'I don't believe in coincidences.' I say, 'Oh my God, me neither!"' - Alasdair Beckett-King

Can you get the point of British humor?

(CHINA DAILY & BBC)