Stir Fry

ILLUMINATED by the lights of the Custom House across the river, Stir Fry, the late Friday night comedy club, is putting its own spotlight on the newer breed of Irish comic.

MC, Dermot Carmody, opened the show with some powerfully funny odds n ends before John Henderson charmed the audience with some acute observations on the trials and tribulations of domesticity. Maire Ni Phrataigh, rumoured to be one of the Nualas, is obviously a vulgar heathen whose permissive society type poetry would have seen her stoned in the village square not so many years ago. Very funny. Patrick McDonnell from Co Louth (and proud of it) is really something else - he exists somewhere on the interface between the rural and the urban and his splendidly original narratives (reference points range from Bunny Carr to the Prodigy) are a delight. Huge promise.

Jason Byrne rounded off the show with some bizarre, if not surreal, set pieces and if all these performers represent the current state of Irish comedy, we're laughing.