Repeat offender

COMEDY:DOUG STANHOPE, The Button Factory, Dublin Fri 8pm €21.50

A few years ago American comic Doug Stanhope pitched up at the Kilkenny Cat Laughs festival. His material was deemed so strong that it was felt better to remove him from a collective bill of acts and give him his own show to himself. Stanhope is a transgressive comic who takes aim at the full range of contemporary society’s ills and always hits the target. Not your usual observational style comic, Stanhope digs deep and comes up with some trenchantly strong material.

This is scabrous cultural commentary which dispenses with niceties and goes for the jugular. Evoking such greats as Lenny Bruce and Bill Hicks, Stanhope has a cult following and by ceaselessly pushing at the edges, he comes up with some truly illuminating material. Warning: not for the easily offended.