Get your laugh on

Sparkling, bubbly and very refreshing – we're referring to the intoxicating, star- studded line-up for the Bulmers Pear Comedy Festival 2012. TONY CLAYTON-LEA  takes you through, sip by sip

WHAT BEGAN as a teensy-weensy, intimate (well, not too intimate) comedy event six years ago (then titled the Galway Comedy Festival) has now blossomed into an event that attracts respected international headliners, Irish comedy heroes and heroines, and a plethora of some of the best new comedians trying to crack a joke no one has heard before.

More than 50 shows are scheduled for the six-day event. There are well-known acts, including Tommy Tiernan, Reginald D Hunter, Des Bishop, Ardal O’Hanlon, Rich Hall, Barry Murphy, Kevin Gildea, Sean Hughes, Andrew Maxwell, Jason Byrne and Pat Shortt; comedy sketch groups/troupes (Rubberbandits, Whose Line Is It Anyway? Faulty Towers Dining Experience, Foil, Arms Hog, Stand Up Showdown); and lesser-known-but-not-for-long names such as John Colleary, Eleanor Tiernan, Tony Law, The Boy with Tape on his Face, Carol Tobin and Terry Alderton. Something very amusing for everyone who turns up? Oh, yes.

TOMMY TIERNAN

One of the country’s most successful and controversial comedians, Tiernan continues to riff on what he once described as “whatever lunacy is within you to come out”. Never short of an opinionated remark? You could say that, alright.

BARRY MURPHY

Between his praised performances on Après Match and his own stand-up gigs (which pivot on original characters/alter egos and a rapid-fire wit – his German “friend”, Gunther, is a major laugh) and Murphy is rightly regarded as one of the best we have.

COLIN MURPHY

With a hefty television profile (he has hosted, among other shows, The Blizzard of Odd and The Unbelievable Truth, and he’s a resident on The Panel), Murphy regularly undermines his family- friendly TV style with content that is both refreshingly honest and R-rated.

SEAN HUGHES

He was here (he won the prestigious Perrier Comedy Award in 1987), he was there (team captain on Never Mind the Buzzcocks; he joined the cast of Coronation Street in 2007) and then he kinda disappeared (writing novels has that effect). Now Hughes is back in the swing of things, with the thing he loves above all else: comedy. The mustest-see on the Must-See list?

DES BISHOP

Interesting guy, very good comic; Bishop has graduated from basing his comedy largely on his observations of the Irish and their wily ways to turning grave topics (his diagnosis of testicular cancer, the socially disadvantaged, the death of his father) into seriously intelligent humour.

FAULTY TOWERS DINING EXPERIENCE

And you thought you were out for a highly enjoyable dinner in the company of your loved ones? But what’s this? A delusional hotelier by the name of Basil? Stalked by his snooty, constantly undermining wife, Sybil? Harassed by a sincere but moronic waiter called Manuel? It can mean only one thing: bread knives at dawn . . .

PHILL JUPITUS

The man born as Philip Swan (he took his grandfather’s surname at 16) started his comedy life as a performance poet in the mid-1980s, and has since ricocheted from radio to television to stage, all the while honing his craft as a decent stand-up/one-liner merchant.

REGINALD D HUNTER

Former classic theatre student Hunter owes his considerable success as a comedian to the person who, more than 15 years ago, dared him to stand on stage and crack a few jokes. It’s been a good, long laugh to the bank ever since – you don’t get nominated for the Perrier Comedy Award three years in a row (2002, 2003, 2004) by being less than brilliant.

RICH HALL

Part Cherokee, Hall is a Mecklenburg, North Carolina, comic who began his career performing impromptu sketches for street crowds in the late 1970s. He graduated to TV in the early 1980s, and is now one of the most highly regarded comedians on the circuit. Strange but true: Hall once worked for the United States Meteorological Service as a hurricane namer.

CAROL TOBIN

We first caught Tobin at this year's Forbidden Fruit event, where she straddled nervy disposition and genuinely original comic musings with ladylike aplomb. We also really like her How The Fuck Did That Get There? section on her treat-tickler of a website, caroltobin.com.

ARDAL OHANLON

Aside, maybe, from Rich Hall, Tommy Tiernan and Reginald D Hunter, O’Hanlon is the best-known name at the Bulmers event. He will, of course, forever be associated with Father Ted, but if you’re looking for the best laterally thinking comedian you’ll ever see in the comfort of your own country, then you know where to look in Galway next week.

JOHN COLLEARY

The star and co-writer of The Savage Eye, it won’t be long before Colleary marches forth into the bigger time. Again, we caught him for the first time at Forbidden Fruit earlier this year, and for a full 25 minutes, he quipped and one-lined his way into the heads of everyone who was lucky enough to see him in the Comedy Tent.

RUBBERBANDITS

You might think this comedy hip-hop duo from Limerick is more about having a laaaaafff, like, than anything else. You would be wrong, as this bunch are social satirists of the highest order. They won’t be unknown outside Ireland for too much longer, either, as the success of their recent comedy shorts on Channel 4’s Funny Fortnight season shows.

PAT SHORTT

Shortt is many things to many people: the archetypal Irish character comedian (D’Unbelivables), the superb actor (Garage), bar owner (Pat Shortt’s Bar, Castlemartyr, Cork) and a one-man showstopper (his Dixie Walsh persona in his new solo show, I Am The Band). He’s also popping up in Sky’s Moone Boy and John (The Guard) McDonagh’s new movie, Cavalry. Busy man, so – catch him in Galway while you can.

JASON BYRNE

One of the most successful Irish comedians of the past 10 years, Byrne has been collecting awards and nominations for more years than Mr Brennan cares to remember. He travels well, too, with fanbases increasing in the UK, the US and Australia. More crucially, perhaps, Byrne seems to have taken to the business side of his career very well, as proven by the amount of DVDs he shifts from his commercially attuned website ( jasonbyrne.ie).