Fecquin Hilarious

If you’ve logged onto the internet at all in the last couple of months, you’ll probably have heard me bleating on, and on, and on about my recent move back home to rural South County Galway, a place with rocks where fields should be and reality where Killinaskully should be. Since I got settled back in Connacht, I’ve struggled with how best to explain this reclaimed lifestyle to my urbane urbanites back in my adopted city of Cork. Should I send them photos of cows in flagrante delicto? Elderly priests falling off their bicycles? Perhaps videos of boy racers speeding their Massey Fergusons up and down the community school car park? For a while, it was as perplexing a quandary as our disappearing lakes. And then Garry Carroll sorted it for me, just as he had sorted Fade Street and Coldplay. I should never have doubted him. Garry Carroll, also … There’s more

New Comedy: Lisa Joyce “Back to School”

Lisa Joyce is an up-and-coming Irish comedian trying to make it on the comedy scene and with her comedy CV to date it seems she isn’t doing too badly at all! With comments like “A rising star” and “brilliant” under your belt along with a couple of prestigious awards you know you’re doing a good job. Lisa bounces, quite literally, onto a stage near you soon (if you live in Dublin or Galway!) with her new show “Back to School” in which she promises to bring you back to the classroom except this time you’re allowed to eat sweets supplied by Happy Pills! Go along to the gigs! Laughs guaranteed! Details oare as follows: Galway Town Hall Theatre (Studio), Courthouse Square, Galway 830pm (doors open 8.00) August 19th tickets: www.tht.ie Dublin The Twisted Pepper, Abbey Street, Dublin 1 8.30pm Show (doors open 8.00) 3rd September tickets: www.thetwistedpepper.com Tickets for both … There’s more

Free Events: Aidan Bishop Previews ‘Misspelled’ @ The International Bar

Irish comedy’s heartthrob Aidan Bishop (hey, it’s not often they’re good lookin’, it’s worth the mention) is heading off to Edinburgh pretty soon for his fourth consecutive run at the Fringe. Before he does, he’s doing a week of preview shows at The International Bar on Wicklow Street (‘The Inter’ to regulars) and they’re 100% free in. Interested? ‘Misspelled’ is described as a ‘brand new stand-up comedy show’ in which ‘Aidan Bishop asks if dyslexics make the best comedians’. The resident MC at the Inter and well known brother-of-Des grew up with undiagnosed dyslexia and the new one-hour show explores his childhood and how dyslexia has changed his life. Sounds like heavy going, but they say tragedy breeds comedy and we’ve heard on the grapevine that this one’s worth a look. Running Monday 18th to Friday 22nd at 7.15pm (doors at 7pm) it’s totally free and 100% misspelled.

Comedy Review - Foil, Arms and Hog / A Betrayal of Penguins @ Whelans

  Sketch comedy can be a pretty tricky thing to get right. For every ‘The Two Ronnie’s’ you have Frankie Boyle’s ‘Tramadol Nights’ and for every two good sketches in ‘That Mitchell and Webb look’ , you have a further ten other sketches in ‘That Mitchell and Webb look’. The hardest thing about any sketch show is the hit rate of the good sketches. You could be laughing away for ages and then suddenly be met with a horrible unfunny silence that has you staring into a drink until the pain has gone away. A little bit like at a wedding where the best man suddenly decides to mention that time he thought this day would never come after he walked in on you and the butch Polish mature student back in first year during your ‘experimental’ stage. Yes, while the same applies to straight stand-up, it is a lot … There’s more