So, these three women walk into a pub. They go up to the bar and the first one says "hurrah, we've colonised a male jokeform", the second one says "cor, getta load of the barman" and the third one says "yes, but there's still no escaping the fact that this joke's been told by a man". Thus spake Bill Bailey, offering up his own deconstruction-by-numbers analysis of humour, gender and meta-language. It wasn't all as high flautin' as that: he also went on to explain how new technology has helped revolutionise the comedy format - for example, the advent of the video entry-phone has signalled the death knell of the "knock knock" joke. These are weighty matters down Kilkenny way.
There only are seven jokes in the world (or variations on them) and Bill Bailey doesn't tell any of them.
With what was once quaintly known as "alternative" comedy now sitting happily on the couch, trading humorous anecdotes with Des O'Connor, Bailey is one of the few performers around resisting the descent into prime-time mainstream, courtesy of a heavy-duty iconoclasm and Wildean excursions into the area more properly known as "wit" than comedy.
"So, these three blokes walked into a pub, something happened and the outcome was humourous," Bailey added as he continued his master-class in the shifting sands of stand-up. Bearing in mind something Armando Iannucci had pointed out in his set earlier in the evening - namely "that the first line of Milton's Paradise Lost has the same rhythmic structure as the theme tune from The Flintstones" - it was abundantly clear that a divide has set in the cosy world of chuckledom. While Bailey, Iannucci, Dylan Moran and Johnny Vegas are busying making creative advances, their peer group is still - rather naively - hung up on Entertainment. The template for the latter comes in a box and all you have to do is add water for instant laffs: jokes about drinking a lot and not knowing what you're doing (a veritable hoot, I don't think); limp gags about the differences between the genders - men want sex, women want love (you should meet some of my female friends, mister); those wizened ol' chestnuts of penis size/men unable to spell "clitoris" let alone find it/the difference between being in your 20s and your 30s (from drug-taking sex fiend to hyper-domesticated bore in one easy step, apparently - gosh, I must have missed out on that class); and maybe just a million too many gags about how different Europeans are from Americans (stop with your profound insights). And if I hear another American comic talk about "how you Irish really drink a lot", I'll reach for my gun and the dum dums. Enough already folks, comedy has moved on. The very fact that you can surmise all this from a long weekend at Cat Laughs is a tribute to the breadth and scope of the festival. Coming as it does at the end of the comedy year, most of the performers either preview their new, Edinburgh competition show or go through the motions with anything left at their disposal. Because it's non-competitive and there are no television cameras, Cat Laughs is always admirably open-ended and you really are getting state-of-theart acts for cut down prices in comfortable surroundings. And you're always guaranteed at least one act to have you reaching for the superlatives. This year it came in the shape of the semi-retired "bad boy of comedy" Gerry Sadowitz. This Scottish-Jewish act ("two stereotypes for the price of one" as Arnold Brown would have it) remains something of a cult because of the transgressive nature of his act. Oft compared in terms of material, if not success, to Lenny Bruce and Bill Hicks, Sadowitz declines the comparison, pointing out that "deep down, Bruce and Hicks were humanitarians, but I fuckin' hate everyone". Indeed. Sadowitz's stand-up act is enough to make liberals choke on their Sunday supplements as he sets about taboo subects - but all in the best possible taste. Not a single word of his act could be repeated here, but never mistake Sadowitz for a unreconstructed racist, sexist, homophobic pig - he's far too clever for that: he's merely liberal-baiting after years of PC claustrophobia and general condescension. This year he was presenting the other side of his act - Sadowitz is also one of the best close-up magicians in the world, an honour which will never garner him fame or fortune for the simple reason that you can never play to more than 50 people at a time (because of the nature of the tricks) and you can never transfer your talent to television because everyone suspects camera trickery.
He's an awesome performer and single-handedly wrests back from the likes of Paul Daniel a much neglected and looked-down-upon art form.
The organisers of Cat Laughs have always done the audiences a service by selecting Irish comics on merit and not "paddying up" the bill just because the festival is held in Kilkenny. Quite right too - it is, after all, an international festival. Nonetheless, the Irish always do well here by dint of speaking the vernacular and being able to nail down the local references. Whether it be Barry Murphy offering a musical trawl through the classic hits of the Eurovision, Jason Byrne tearing up the comedy rule book and smearing it all over his body, Eddie Bannon ripping it up or Mark Doherty (the great white Irish hope) spinning bizzare webs of the imagination, there's plenty of strength in depth.
And Tommy Tiernan's performances this year were nothing short of inspired. It would though be nice to see (in my opinion) the two best Irish comedians, Ian MacPherson and Michael Redmond, being given a run out some time. Still, in Dylan Moran and Owen O'Neill we've two acts who are making a positive contribution to the advancement of stand-up. Team Britain stole the show this year, fielding big television heavyweights in the shape of Paul Merton, Iannucci and Bill Bailey: their B team wasn't half bad either - Sean Meo, John Hegley and John Shuttleworth were more than worth their admission price, though Johnny Vegas remains the man. The Americans did well, particularly Kilkenny newcomer Dave Attell, who managed to put a fresh coat of paint on well-worn subject matter and amiably displayed that there was far more to him than "knob jokes" while both Kathleen Madigan and Diane Ford hit home with some highly professional routines and Warren Hutcherson was mightily impressive with his spun-out story lines.
Between the white, black, male, female, gay, straight, old and young acts on offer, there was a mass of information, it's just a pity that there's no one to really rival Bill Bailey. Now in its fourth year, Cat Laughs has got into a groove and made its mark. The flip side of the comedy coin to Edinburgh, it continues to impress by being simultaneously international and intimate. There's little feeling among the organisers that the formula should be changed in coming years, not least because every single comic gives it the vote as their festival of choice. You would think it would become routine, but by dint of the odd tweak here and there, Cat Laughs retains a freshness and dynamism. With a record 30,000 people in this year, and 95 per cent of shows sold out, Cat Laughs is developing on an almost algorithmic level. Because of its finite space, this year saw the unveiling of a "fringe" to the official festival which - though confined to only one venue and featuring just half a dozen performers - speaks volumes for the attraction of Cat Laughs. As any festival director will tell you, you know you've arrived when you attract a fringe.
Some of Murphy's Cat Laughs goes on tour from today until Saturday. Dom Irrera and Mark Doherty are at Andrews Lane tonight and tomorrow night. Dom Irrera, Mark Doherty and Barry Murphy are at the Belltable Arts Centre, Limerick on Thursday night, at Roisin Dubh, Galway on Friday night and at the Half Moon Theatre, Cork on Saturday night
