Following its phenomenal success in 2007, The Bulmers International Comedy Festival returns to Dublin for the 5th year. One of the top five comedy festivals in the world, it has hosted the cream of international and Irish talent, including Ricky Gervais, Denis Leary, Little Britain, Dylan Moran, Lee Evans and Bill Bailey, to name but a few.
This year’s festival will take place in various venues across Dublin for three weeks from 1st September. Popular American stand-up, Chris Rock, will be making his debut Irish performance as part of the event.
Also confirmed are the vocal talents of Police Academy’s Michael Winslow; Rich Hall as Otis Lee Crenshaw; BBC TV’s The Mighty Boosh; the hugely popular Jimmy Carr (pictured right) ; rising comedy star Stephen Lynch; from TV’s Phoenix Nights Paddy Mc Guinness; and from TV’s The Royle Family, Ricky Tomlinson, and many others.
The Bulmers Fringe will feature the talents of Brendon Burns, Dead Cat Bounce and Jimeoin On Ice in The Sugar Club. The festival will see the return of The Orchard Path Comedy Trail taking place in various pubs around town and also a search for new stand-up talent competition, Nuthin Butt Funny.
Tickets are on sale: In person: From 99 Ticketmaster Outlets Nationwide
24hr hotlines: Tel: (ROI) 0818 719 300 / 0818 719 330 (NI) 0870 243 4455, or
Buy online: www.ticketmaster.ie
DEAD CAT BOUNCE
Among the local up-and-coming talent is Dead Cat Bounce (pictured above) a comedy group made up of writer/ performers Demian Fox from Galway, Shane O’Brien from Dublin, James Walmsley from England, and director/ designer/ occasional performer Mick Cullinan from Clare.
The four met in Trinity College, Dublin, where they were among the founders of the ten-man comedy group H-BAM. H-BAM performed around Ireland and the UK from 2002-4 with regular sell-out shows in Dublin’s Temple Bar Music Centre and two very successful runs at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2003, 2004).
In 2005, James and Shane were part of the five-man sketch group Los Albatross which won critical acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for their show ‘The Boy Who Cried Whale’. In the same year James, Mick and Demian formed the comedy band Captain Seaweed and the Shagnasties, and headlined the comedy tent at the Trinity Ball, 2005.
In 2006 H-BAM reformed for Mo Molam’s memorial at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. They performed one sketch ‘Graham and the Nazis’ to thunderous silence, after a technical mix-up led to images of Mo being inter-spliced with swastikas on an enormous screen behind them.
The members of Dead Cat Bounce then spent two years getting jobs, getting bored and talking about writing comedy. Finally, in late 2007, Demian, Shane, James and Mick began writing ‘Famine! The Musical’ (which they are still working on).
They also began writing the sketch show, Dead Cat Bounce, which premiered at the Project Arts Centre in January 2008. They have just returned from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2008, where they performed from 3rd to 24th August.
They will be performing their new show, ‘Radio Play’ as part of the Bulmers Comedy Festival for three nights in the Sugar Club, the 8, 9 and 10 September.
Dead Cat Bounce’s ‘Radio Play’ revisits the golden age of 1950s radio comedy, albeit with a very modern twist. This show is an unrelenting hour of very funny sketches and music performed by three guys, one sound effects artist, and a stage full of things that make noise.
Discover how celery and frozen lettuce can simulate breaking bones and punches, the magic of radio, and the lost art of suggesting an advancing army using only a bucket, some spanners, and a pair of rubber gloves. Plus, these guys can sing and play instruments.
My favourite Dead Cat Bounce sketch features a hotel room, with a rapid turnover of guests in different situations. Three business types are worrying about becoming ‘non executive vice president’, while a dead hooker and a broken television lie on the floor.
Two academic rivals, one in a wheelchair, find they have to share a bed while at a conference in the hotel. Three clowns with red noses argue over whether they have a future. Three sailors on shore leave plan their escapade in the style of a musical.
A bellboy tries to buy in to a cockfight being organised in the room. An MI6 spymaster attempts to recruit a promising young graduate. “We need brave, dedicated, intelligent young people who are willing to risk everything for their Queen, their country and their fellow subjects of Great Britain! And to a lesser extent Northern Ireland.” A young man dying of cancer on a final cycling trip milks his illness for all it is worth with his longsuffering companion.
With only seconds in between sketches, these guys keep the comedy flowing as they change characters, accents, situations. This is intelligent comedy and someone in the group has a keen ear for language, rhythm and rhyme.
The grand finale is really spectacular and appears to be taken from ‘Famine, the Musical’ a work in progress. Keen observation, character work, creative language, and perfect timing make this a show not to be missed next time it comes around.