An incredible line-up of 85 comedians will be taking descending in Dublin's spectacular Iveagh Gardens for the 2014 Vodafone Comedy Festival.
Running from Thursday 24th to Sunday 27th July, stand-ups from Ireland, the UK, North America and beyond will be vying to pull our legs and tickle our funny bones. Summing the event up in a nutshell, festival fave Milton Jones says it's, “An annual theme park of laughter in the middle of Dublin, and a rare opportunity to laugh loudly and drink in the park without someone calling the police!”
Dara O’Briain, David O’Doherty, Jason Byrne and Maeve Higgins lead the Irish delegation along with Ed Byrne, rPJ Gallagher, David McSavage, Barry Murphy, Eleanor Tiernan, Kevin McGahern, Fred Cooke and Bernard O’Shea.
South African Trevor Noah, New Zealand’s Rhys Darby, Canadian one-line specialist Stewart Francis and his compatriots Bobby Mair and Katherine Ryan and Denmark’s Sofie Hagen - who won this year’s Chortle Best Newcomer Award - make up the international talent with Americans Neal Brennan, Jen Kirkman, Anthony Jeselnik, Rory Scovel, Eddie Pepitone and The Pajama Men.
(This is turning out to be a long list. Deep breath. It's worth it.) Coming from over the small pond are Russell Howard, Jason Manford, Al Murray, Milton Jones, Gary Delaney, Daniel Sloss and Matt Richardson.
Emerging Irish acts will include RTE New Comedy Award Winner Sean Nolan and So You Think You’re Funny award winner Aisling Bea, Foil Arms and Hog and Children’s Laureate Eoin Colfer will present his new musical comedy creation The Belle Bottoms.
Festival Director Bren Berry says, “The reputation of the Vodafone Comedy Festival has travelled around the world largely due to the word-of-mouth enthusiasm of the international comics who love performing here. Also, humour is ingrained in our national personality and I feel comedy is as essential to our culture as music or literature. With this event we can celebrate everyone from the latest generation of exciting newcomers to the established acts who have placed Irish comedy on the world map.”
Tickets for the festival go on sale on Monday June 16th with 20,000 people expected to attend over the four days. Tickets are sold on a show-by-show basis and the festival is a strictly over 18s event.