SIX LEADING Irish and international comedians will present six new shows at the Laughter Lounge in the Róisín Dubh for this year’s Galway Comedy Festival
The festival kicks off on Wednesday October 21 and first up is Phil Nichol with his show A Deadpan Poet Sings Quiet Songs Quietly at 8pm. Here Phil will play Bobby Spade, a white-suited lounge lizard with a sideline in psychopathy.
Accompanied by jazz piano and double bass, the Canadian comic unfurls his man’s tragic back-story – an abusive mother, a series of ‘uncles’, a string of failed marriages – in hilarious verse, riotous song, and priceless one-liners.
Then at 10pm the brilliant Reginald D Hunter will present The Only Apple in the Garden of Eden and Niggas. The Times described him as “a masterful, playful comic…Hunter gets more into his 50-minutes than some comics manage in their career.” The special guest is Steve Hughes.
There will be musical comedy and satire from Dublin’s Dead Cat Bounce on Friday 23 at 8pm. Their mix of sketch based comedy and rock songs, highly influenced by British comedy, has been winning them fans across the country.
At 10pm the controversial Australian comedian Jim Jeffries, who Q has described him as “Britain’s most offensive stand-up”, will present his show The Hits, featuring the comic’s confrontational comedy classics, coupled with snippets of new material. Graham Dolan will be DJing afterwards.
On Saturday 24 at 5pm, I Dare Ya Andrew Stanley and Damian Clark will host the Stand Up Showdown, where 16 of Ireland’s best up and coming comedians will compete for audience approval until only two of them are left to fight it out for the main prize.
Then at 9pm there is a treat in store when the great Manchester punk-poet-humourist John Cooper Clarke takes to the stage.
From opening for the Sex Pistols and Elvis Costello in the late 1970s, John rapidly established himself as the poet laureate of punk. His witty, street smart, often very humorous look at everyday British life, society, and culture is best experienced through such classic poems as ‘Kung Fu International’, ‘You Never See A Nipple In The Daily Express’, and ‘Euro Communist/Gucci Socialist’. Today, it’s not only the punks of the 1970s who are his fans, but school children who learn his words as part of the British GCSEs. Graham Dolan will be DJing afterwards.
Three comedians will present three new shows on Sunday 25. At 6pm the brilliant Abie Philbin Bowman will present No Vietcong Ever Called Me Nigger.
Abie is the only Western stand-up to have performed a religious, political, comedy show in Pakistan, the only Irish radio host to have marked Barack Obama’s election victory by interviewing the Ku Klux Klan, and enjoyed being boycotted by Ian Paisley’s DUP. This show is his account of those events.
At 8pm, Andrew Maxwell will present The Lamp. The award winning comedian has been described by The Daily Telegraph as “without doubt the strongest comedian on the circuit right now” while The Scotsman said his comedy is “politically well-informed” and “thought-provoking”.
Carey Marx has been described as “a genius” by The Guardian while Metro says he takes his audiences into “the darkest realms of comedy”. Galwegians can find out when he presents his new show The Doom Gloom Boom at 10pm on the same night. Graham Dolan will be DJing afterwards.
Tickets are available from the Róisín Dubh and Zhivago.
