EVERY COMEDIAN enjoys a “corporate”, those occasional highly paid bookings by companies who wish to bring their staff out for an evening’s worth of drunken ribaldry and mirth. However, Dubliners Brendan Burke and Gerry Lavelle had a somewhat hair-raising experience recently when they were invited to put on a show for two rival firms in a well known middle Ireland hotel. Indeed, such was the animosity between the two sets of employees in the room that you could have cut the atmosphere with the incredibly long and sharp knife which Brendan uses to tremendous effect in his extremely funny Limerick routine.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, one particularly inebriated and irate punter approached Brendan after the show, castigated him for being a “smart-ass Dub” and threatened to stick the aforementioned kitchen implement where the sun most definitely don’t shine. Thankfully, Burke’s partner in crime was outside in the car with the engine running and both comedians escaped unscathed.

Jason Byrne is the Irish turn featured on Edinburgh Or Bust, the ongoing Channel 4 documentary chronicling the assaults of a number of comics on this month’s Edinburgh fringe. Adam Bloom, newcomer Stephen Grant and superb English duo Lee & Herring are among the Brits being profiled in the highly informative and entertaining series.

Inspired English comic Jim Tavare returns to the Murphy’s Laughter Lounge on Dublin’s Eden Quay due to popular demand following his last run of sell-out shows. Joining him for three evening’s of mayhem and chaos on Thurs 20th/Fri 21st/Sat 22nd August are Galway’s Gerry Mallon and Dubliner Joe Rooney. The following week (Thurs 27th/Fri 28th/Sat 29th August) sees comedian and broadcaster Morgan Jones joined by Elva Crowley, the woman of a thousand (well, quite a few, anyway) voices; Dave Haddington and Charlie Chuck, the insane drummer who has made a complete cult of himself through his starring role on numerous Vic & Bob excursions.

Joke Of The Fortnight: Two nipple rings walk into a bar, march up to the counter and demand two pints of stout. The barman refuses to serve them and asks them to leave. Annoyed, the nipple rings ask for an explanation, only to be told by the barman: “I’m sorry, I can’t serve you because you’re off your tits.”

Critical Condition was the name of a recent Channel 4 documentary which covered the attempts of Financial Times comedy critic Ian Shuttleworth’s ill-advised attempt to win the Perrier Award at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe. Despite a shameless effort by one of his mates (who, as luck would have it, was on the judging panel) to get him a nomination, Shuttleworth’s spectacularly unfunny show was not deemed worthy of consideration for comedy’s Blue Riband.

However, the scribe really met his Waterloo when he attempted to play Late And Live, the fearsome late night bear-pit in Edinburgh’s Gilded Balloon. Having taken the stage in front of an audience comprised largely of comedians and their cronies, he beat a hasty retreat after just 45 seconds, having been repelled by a torrent of abuse initiated by Irish jeer-leaders Dylan Moran and Sean Hughes.

Fiona Looney performed heroically when she sat in for 2FM’s Gerry Ryan during his most recent holiday. As well as occasional recitals from everyone’s favourite comedy pages, one of the features initiated by Fiona during her tenure was a telephone poll to establish which celebrities were the meanest when it came to giving autographs. Somewhat surprisingly, Ronan Keating, who we know to be an eminently decent chap, fared quite badly, but not quite as terribly as Pierce Brosnan, who is either the world’s biggest tight-arse or simply unable to sign his own name.

The funniest story, though, came from a young boy who, on a visit to Planet Hollywood, approached James Belushi with pen and paper in hand. Belushi impatiently announced that he would do the honours after his lunch, so the altogether too patient child went outside and waited, and waited, and waited . . . for three hours. Upon returning to see if Belushi had finished eating, he was informed that the has-been actor had sneaked out a couple of hours previously through a different exit.