Tim Vine bags best gag of the Fringe

HAVE you heard the one about the stand-up comic who was crowned king of the one-liners?

Tim Vine, pictured, took the title for having the best joke of the Edinburgh Fringe's roughly 900 comedic shows.

Vine, who set a world record of 499 jokes in an hour in 2004, won for the gag: "I've just been on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday. I'll tell you what, never again."

A panel of judges for the TV channel Dave made up of leading comedy critics visited dozens of venues for a fortnight to shortlist the best and worst jokes for a public vote.

• Top ten best and worst jokes from this year's Edinburgh Fringe . . .

Each sat through about 60 performances with up to 7,200 jokes per judge before reaching their shortlist.

Vine, whose current show The Joke-Amotive is on at the Pleasance Courtyard, said: "I'm going to celebrate by going to Sooty's barbecue and having a 'sweepsteak'."

Scotsman comedy reviewer Jay Richardson said 2010 has been particularly good for laughs in Edinburgh, but the prize for best joke is not a good showcase for the breadth of talent across the Festival.

He said: "The standard of comedy has been higher than average across the board this year. There seems to be more gaggier comics this year with one liners, probably because of competitions like this one and because of Twitter.

"The idea of taking jokes in isolation distorts the nature of stand-up comedy at the Fringe. There's a rhythm to telling jokes.

"A competition like this favours someone like Tim Vine who does mostly one-liners. He is the exception rather than the rule.

"All comedy is subjective - one person's genius is another person's stinker. That's just the nature of comedy."