Lee Brace Wins UK Pun Championship 2023

The UK Pun Championships returned on Monday 13th February 2023 at De Montfort Hall in Leicester. Celebrating the great British pun with contestants from all across the UK where Lee Brace, aka ‘Attila the Pun’, was crowned winner!

Joining him in the ring were: Ben Emmett, Cosmic Kat, Daniel Edison, Geoff Alderman, Kat Molinari, Pauline Eyre and Stevie Vegas. The event was hosted by Jason Byrne.

Award-winning actor and comedian Lee Brace was delighted with the win and said “I can’t quite believe I did it! It’s been a lot of fun writing so many puns (over 200 in total!) but getting to perform them in front of a sell-out crowd, at De Montfort Hall, in a full-size wrestling ring was something else! Magical!”

Lee is now looking forward to performing his brand new character comedy show, ‘A Night with Ross Feratu and Friends’ this May at Brighton Fringe. Go to www.brightonfringe.org for tickets and you can follow him on Twitter for updates and more punny stuff! @bracealmighty

Some of the puns that helped Lee take the crown were:

I took my Spanish friend for a picnic at the weekend. He said “Gracias!” I said, “Yeah, I should have bought a blanket!”
When I was a kid, my Mum used to run a dating site for chickens. She did whatever she could to make hens meet.
I’ve just applied for a job as a waiter. Well, someone has to put food on the table.
Whenever there’s an eclipse, my Dad starts shaking and twitching. Lunar-tick!
For Christmas, I bought my girlfriend a book about Hypochondria. Well, what do you buy the woman who has everything?

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 30th 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 picked topics at random on the night and competitors then took it in turns to pun about that particular subject. The audience voted for their preferred pun by wooping and cheering and the favourite then went through to the next round. Ultimately, the two finalists, Daniel Edison and Lee Brace battled it out until the overall winner was crowned.

The 2022 winner Richard Pulsford attended the show to handover the Championship Belt to Lee Brace. 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 who battled it out for this year’s crown were:

Ben Emmett
Cosmic Kat
Daniel Edison
Geoff Alderman
Kat Molinari
Lee Brace
Pauline Eyre
Stevie Vegas

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.