Olaf Falafel

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Olaf Falafel with The 2019 Edinburgh Funniest Joke of the Fringe Award Olaf Falafel Funniest Joke Of The Fringe.jpg
Olaf Falafel with The 2019 Edinburgh Funniest Joke of the Fringe Award

Olaf Falafel is a comedian and children's author. Falafel illustrates his own books and is the creator and presenter of Art Club, an online art channel for children. [1] He has been a stand-up comedian since 2012 [2] and is known for posting humorous videos on Twitter. [3] His humour frequently involves puns and absurdity. [4] [5]

Contents

Career

Falafel worked as an art director before becoming a comedian. [6]

In 2014, he was nominated for the Laughing Horse Comedy Club's New Act of the Year competition. [7] In 2017 he was included in both The Guardian 's and The Telegraph 's rundowns of the funniest jokes of the Edinburgh Fringe. [8] [9] In 2018 Falafel was in Dave channel's, The Mirror 's, The Evening Standard 's, The Scotsman 's and i News's rundowns of the top jokes of the Edinburgh Fringe [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] and won an award for his festival poster. [15]

Falafel secured a three-book contract with HarperCollins in 2016, after asking for a publisher to approach him in a tweet. [6]

In 2019, Falafel made headlines by winning the Best Joke Of The Fringe. [16] He took the title with the gag: "I keep randomly shouting out 'Broccoli' and 'Cauliflower' – I think I might have florets".

In 2020, Falafel signed a two-book deal with Walker books to illustrate Unleash Your Creative Monster [17] a "funny and informative" guide to creative writing.

In 2021, off the back of his Art Club YouTube videos, [18] Falafel signed a two-book deal with Puffin to create his first middle grade chapter books called Trixie Pickle Art Avenger [19] about a child who becomes their school's version of Banksy.

In August 2022, Falafel had two jokes in the Best Joke of the Edinburgh Fringe Top Ten list.[ citation needed ]

In 2023 Falafel's picture book Blobfish won The Society Of Authors Queen's Knickers Award, [20] and the Federation of Children's Book Groups' Children's Book Award, [21] and was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize for Children's Writing on Nature and Conservation. [22]

In March 2024 Falafel won 'Best Kids Show' at the Leicester Comedy Festival, for his show 'Olaf Falafel's Stupidest Super Stupid Show (Yet)' [23]

Live Shows

Books

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References

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  16. "Edinburgh Fringe funniest joke: Vegetable gag wins top prize". BBC News. August 19, 2019. Retrieved December 31, 2022.
  17. 1 2 Hackett, Tamsin (June 11, 2020). "Walker Books signs two-book deal with creative duo Andy Jones and Olaf Falafel". The Bookseller. Retrieved December 31, 2022.
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  19. 1 2 Hackett, Tamsin (July 2, 2021). "Puffin serves up Falafel's 'laugh-out-loud' middle-grade adventure". The Bookseller. Retrieved October 1, 2021.
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  31. Falafel, Olaf (May 4, 2023). Trixie Pickle Art Avenger: Toxic Takedown.