AN IRISH comedy legend, a British-Iranian superstar, and an ex-pat American as controversial as he is acclaimed, walk onto the stage of a comedy festival...this is not the start of a joke.
This is a description of three outstanding comics - Ardal O’Hanlon, Omid Djalili, and Reginald D Hunter - who will play the Town Hall Theatre as part of the Vodafone Comedy Carnival Galway.
Award winning comedian and actor, Omid Djalili, brings his intelligent, sometimes provocative, always energetic, and captivating stand-up to the Town Hall on Thursday October 24.
Since his first show at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1995, Short, Fat, Kebab Shop Owner's Son, he has gone on to appear in Gladiator, The Mummy, The World Is Not Enough, Alien Autopsy, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Mr Nice, and Pirates of the Caribbean; receive a Perrier nomination; and appear on Live at the Apollo, Have I Got News For You, and Never Mind The Buzzcocks.
On Friday October 26, Reginald D Hunter performs his new show, Facing The Beast. Originally from the USA, but resident in Britain for more than 20 years, Hunter is one of the few performers to have been nominated for the highly coveted Perrier Award in three consecutive years. He has appeared on Have I Got News For You and 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, and presented the critically acclaimed BBC documentaries on American music, Reginald D Hunter’s Songs Of The South and Reginald D Hunter’s Songs Of The Border.
Ardal O’Hanlon performs his new show, The Showing Off Must Go On, on Saturday October 26. Where Ardal comes from (small-town Ireland ) there is nothing worse than showing off. Yet as a stand-up and actor, he is a professional ‘show-off’ (and as a result conflicted ). So why does he do it?
Just when he thought he had made sense of the world, when he thought he knew everything he needed to know, the world shifted. Dramatically. In an age of raging populism, Brexit, Trump, Bolsonaro, the end of truth, the collapsing middle ground, peak avocado, and €15 gin and tonics, and terrified of being on the wrong side of history, and desperate to prove that his gender, race, age and class do not necessarily define him, Ardal is forced to saddle his high horse and ride fearlessly into the culture wars. This show is the result.
Tickets are available from vodafonecomedycarnival.com and the Town Hall Theatre (091 - 569777, www.tht.ie ).
