Wheres me jumpa

Last week I saw a gig listing on Cluch.ie for The Puffincat Club. Obviously a comedy show but I wasnt sure what the format was. Seemed to be a sketch show made up of The Diet Of Worms and five guest comedians.I knew two of the comedians but The Diet Of Worms and The Puffincat Club were new to me.

The format turned out to be various sketches by The Diet Of Worms mingled with five, unrelated, stand up comedians. There is also some animation thrown in, see below. It makes for a very entertaining evening.

The Diet Of Worms are no doubt destined for their own TV show. The three (on the night) were able to make a room full of people laugh with minimal props and clever sketches. Their “That is soooo Galway” sketch had me in tears. Stand up comedians on the night were Bernard O’Shea, Kevin Gildea, Mark Baldwin, George Fox and Eric Lalor.

All the above for a mere €5!

The Littlest Cinema Company

I have wanted to see The Wrestler since its release. Last night I got to see it free in The Ivy House. Every Tuesday night is Movie Night in The Ivy House. Comfy couches and candles make for a cosy setting. Wireless headphones drown out the noise of the surrounding bar. Six people filled the couches but there is plenty of restaurant type seating.

A slip of paper is left for you to request movies you want to see. Looking at the list of movies that have shown, there is a good mix of action, romcoms and drama. The listing is missing some classics though!

Minnie and I arrived early to grab some food. Dinner for two and four drinks came to 31 euro. Nice cheap midweek night out!

U2 rocked Croke Park last night. It was a really impressive show, blew me away. Minnie found two of the cheapest tickets for U2 at Croke Park. We were seated in the Cusack Stand, upper tier. Not the best seats but the scale of the set and performance more than made up for it.

We got to see some of Glasvegas. The sound (or maybe Glasvegas) seemed really bad, they just sounded like a continuous drone. When they finished there was a long wait without any act for U2. The stadium slowly filled up. U2 would be 4/5 songs into their set before Croker seemed full to capacity. Typical Irish!

U2 started with some of their new songs and then got stuck into their oldies. The sun was shining for the start of the gig and it was only when the sun went down that stage really struck you. The huge steel claw poured out smoke and light. The screens expanded and contracted. The sound was definitely better for U2, so perhaps it was just Glasvegas!

Two hours flew by and U2 said goodbye. There is no encore! We waited for about ten minutes for one! This really was a great show. Show is the right word as it is much more than just a music gig. I was surprised at how many kids and lets say older generation were there. But I guess that is the advantage of a seated gig. If I was going again, I would definitely go for a standing ticket.

Not sure how many major tours U2 will have but I will be at the next Dublin date!

It has taken me nearly two years to go see Bodies The Exhibition. I first heard of it while in New York with Minnie two years ago and was sorry I did not get to see it back then. The exhibition has been in Dublin for a number of months now and at the weekend my sister and two nephews popped along.

Tickets were 20EUR for each adult and 12.75EUR for each child. The Ambassador Theatre has been completely taken over for the exhibition.

I was expecting wall to wall full body displays but in fact most of the displays are single body parts or collections of body parts. Each display  comes with an explanation of its purpose and how it was prepared.

One of the most interesting displays was a healthy set of lungs, beside a smokers lungs. The latter was black throughout and must surely be a detterent for smokers who saw it.

My nephews were fascinated by a display of every vein and artery in the human body. The veins were injected with a solution that hardened and allowed the veins to be extracted in tact

Another highlight was a display to show the positioning of body fat. A body was split into three cross sections. The left and right cross sections showed the front and back of the body so you could see how overweight the person was. The middle cross section showed how the body fat looked from the inside. You could see a layer of fat all the way around the body. The layer got thicker around the hips / stomach region.

We went through the exhibition quickly, about 45 minutes to get all the way around. You could easily spend longer in there. The exhibition is closing in July and is well worth a visit. My sister and I loved it and our 11 and 8 year old nephews loved it.

I have often seen comedy nights advertised on the various gig listing sites. Last night I finally went to one and it is definitely something I will be doing again. The venue was The International Comedy Club. We were not sure what comedians would be on but it turned out to be George Fox, Willo White, Kevin Gildea and Fred Cook.

The club is tiny and people cram in on stools to laugh out loud or heckle the new material on trial. We went to the late show, which meant there was a few people with too many beers in them in the crowd. They annoyed everyone around them, even the comedians, so next time I’ll go to the early show!

Tickets are 10 euro for over two hours of comedy so this really is a good option for a cheap night out!

The Cat Laughs Comedy Festival is held every year in Kilkenny. I try to get down to a show or two every year. This year I went to see Des Bishop, Arj Barker and Russel Howard in the Kilford Arms.

Arj Barker started the show off. Ive never seen this guy before but I will definitely try see him again as he was probably the best on the night. He seems to have a care free natural approach to the show, i.e. you dont get the impression he is reading from a script and often went off on bizarre tangents. They type of comedian, when he tells you about some crazy story, you actually believe it happened to him.

Next up was Russell Howard, a young English comedian who although was very entertaining, I wasnt overly impressed with him. I have seen him before on TV and many of his jokes were repeated in this show.

Des Bishop rounded off the night with an effortless performance. He included some material related to this recent Irish language revival show but also had some fresh, unrelated material. After some recent shows and years of touring, it is possible that Bishop is, or is about to, reach the peak of his powers, which made for a side splitting set.

Tickets were €31 incl. booking fee. Would like to have seen more shows but the atmosphere the festival add’s to the town mean’s just being in the area is worthwhile.