The UK Pun Championships and #UKPunday return for their eighth year at Leicester Comedy Festival on 7th February.
The UK Pun Championships and #UKPunday will return for its eighth year at Leicester Comedy Festival on Monday 7th February 2022.
Geoff Rowe, Founding Director of the Leicester Comedy Festival:
“The UK Pun Championships is always one of the highlights of our festival and this year’s event promises to be yet another hilarious evening of pun-related silliness. Our last winner Adele Cliff was a worthy champion and we can’t wait to see this year’s pun-testants battling it out in the ring once again.”
Since its introduction in 2014, The UK Pun Championships has become a huge part of Leicester Comedy Festival – Europe’s largest comedy gala and now in its 29th year. A celebration of the great British pun, contestants enter from across the UK to compete in a battle that takes place in a real boxing ring, surrounded by a boisterous live audience.
Host Jason Byrne will pick topics at random on the night and competitors must then take it in turns to pun about that particular subject. The audience votes for their preferred pun by wooping and cheering and the favourite then goes through to the next round. Ultimately, two finalists battle it out until the overall winner is crowned.
The 2020 winner Adele Cliff will attend the show to handover the Championship Belt to the new winner. The belt was originally designed and commissioned by Cornish stand-up and YouTuber Colin Leggo, who was the 2019 champion of The UK Pun Championships.
The pun-testants battling it out for this year’s crown are:
Pauline Eyre
Friz Frizzle
Iain MacDonald
Chris Norton Walker
Richard Pulsford
Rob Thomas
Richard Woof-lord
Jenan Younis
The UK Pun Championship also spawned the social media phenomenon which is #UKPunDay; a day that champions Britain’s love of puns and wordplay, and which now takes place every year on the second Monday of February. Whether online, in the press or at Leicester Comedy Festival itself, everyone is invited to get on board the pun train, share punbelievable newspaper headlines, punspired shop names from around the country and shamelessly milk the cheers and groans that makes punning marvellous fun.
Geoff Rowe also paid tribute to recently deceased comedy icon Barry Cryer:
“Barry Cryer first performed at Leicester Comedy Festival in 1995 with Willie Rushton when he performed a show called ‘2 Old Farts In The Night’. After that, he regularly performed at the festival with his solo shows, rock & roll shows with Ronnie Golden, and he hosted our Gala Preview Show at De Montfort Hall one year. In 2016 we presented him with a Legend Of Comedy Award and he generously attended the ceremony to collect his trophy. He was loved by all of us at the festival and we will miss him hugely.”
The UK Pun Championships 2022, Monday 7th February 2022, De Montfort Hall, Granville Road, Leicester, LE1 7RU. 7.30pm (doors: 7.10pm) – 10.10pm, £11.50 – £22.00.
