Prayers and rugs for Sky comedies

Sky has created six “Ireland-themed” comedy shorts that it will premiere at the Cat Laughs Comedy Festival in Kilkenny, which Sky sponsors, over the June Bank Holiday.

The six shorts will be added to its on-demand platform from June 4th, before showing up later in the month on the Sky Arts channel.

The Comedy Bites are written and created by Jason Byrne, Diet of Worms, Al Porter, Alison Spittle, Seann Walsh and Canadian-Irish comedian (and panel show regular) Katherine Ryan. In Ryan's short, the atheist single mother travels to Ireland to attend her nephew's Christening, where "her Irish family pray for her".

The series adds to what Sky hails as its "commitment to programming in Ireland". Three of the six shorts are produced by Baby Cow Productions, the UK-based comedy house that makes Sky 1's Moone Boy, while one is from ITV-owned Big Talk. Two are from Merman, the production company co-founded by Sharon Horgan, including 'The Rug', in which it is the fate of Amy Huberman to play Jason Byrne's wife.