The first show Laughlines had the pleasure of attending at this year’s Murphy’s Cat Laughs was by the redoubtable Jon Kenny at the Watergate Theatre. The former D’unbelievable was in stellar form, interacting effortlessly with the crowd, performing his host of eccentric provincial characters with aplomb and – the mark of the truly seasoned professional – utilising time restrictions to his own advantage (forced to change into each character before our very eyes, Kenny segued seamlessly from one monologue to the next with barely a pause for breath).
A particular highlight was the garrulous hurler relating the tale of a club trip to Spain, with the sportsman’s recollection of an imbroglio between a colleague and a Spanish monkey-handler seeing Kenny rise to sublime heights: “So after the monkey attacks McCarthy, doesn’t young Timmy Quirke – Quirke, be the Jaysus, who hasn’t said a word for the whole trip – start yelling, ‘Get him! Get him!’ and lamp the monkey-handler.”
The penultimate character, Mad Bill Of The Hill, meanwhile, was as bleak and desolate a creation as one would find in the darkest recesses of The League Of Gentlemen.
From there, we travelled to the other side of town to the Karl Spain/Marcus Brigstocke/Rich Hall triple-header in the baking-hot Village Inn, hosted by Ed Byrne. Although we’ve all only really come to see one man, special mention has to go to Aussie comic Brigstocke, who manages to land himself the 2004 Laughlines Joke Of The Festival award: “You know, they’ve gone crazy over speeding in England these days. I was stopped by a copper the other night for doing, like, 61 in a 60 mile zone. And he says, (adopts incredibly portentous voice): ‘Excuse me sir, do you know what speed you were doing?’ I said, ‘Er, I think it was my brother’s mate, maybe 2 or 3 grams.’”
And then it’s the man we’ve all been waiting for, Mr. Rich Hall (pictured). The Texan native doesn’t disappoint, making particular sport out of both the venue’s tiny environs and the nuclear test site-like levels of heat. “Yes, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the re-consecrated Pizza Hut,” he announces, before one patron snaps a photo. “Listen, sir,” continues Hall, “let me assure you that there is so much steam on that lens right now, you’ll be lucky if you get the guy sitting in front of you. Why are you taking a photo anyway? What are you gonna tell your friends? ‘This is a drunk Texan I met after-hours in a sauna in Kilkenny last year?’
The following evening, Laughlines made the trip to Murphy’s Uncorked, where Paul Merton and the Comedy Store players provided a superb evening’s entertainment in the Cork Opera House. Built entirely on suggestions from the audience, this was a sight to behold, whether Merton and co. were performing scenes in the style of Woody Allen or Star Trek (or even, at your correspondent’s suggestion, Quentin Tarantino, prompting a hilariously awful John Travolta impression from Merton), improvising a catchy blues-rock number based on nothing other than the nonsensical phrase “Alan’s Termite Structure”, or simply having a barney with a drunken member of the crowd.
But undoubtedly the biggest round of applause was reserved for the piece resulting from the following scenario: George Bush’s Speech Writers On A Coffee Break. “In the name of God,” announced Jim McSweeny (who, despite an injured foot, hobbled on heroically throughout the show, courtesy of a walking stick) in the sketch’s first – and last – line. “You have got to – repeat, got to – remember: Just the one syllable!”