Cat Laughs

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The Cat Laughs Comedy Festival is a comedy festival held over the first weekend in June each year in Kilkenny, County Kilkenny, Republic of Ireland. It was founded in 1994. [1]

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History

Cat Laughs was envisioned in 1994 by Lynn Cahill who ran Bickerstaffe theatre company in Kilkenny. As a means to expand the companies programme, she considered with her business partner that Kilkenny was great for a festival. After originally planning a choral festival called "Cat Sings", her business partner Richard Cook suggested a comedy festival instead. [1] For the first two editions, no Irish comedian closed the festival due to the audience preferring British comics. [1] The first edition was sponsored by Smithwick's before being sponsored by Murphy's Irish Stout until 2015 when Smithwick's returned. [2] It is traditionally held over the weekend of Pentecost. [3] Each comedian is previewed at other shows by the festival directors before being invited to perform at Cat Laughs. [1]

Several comedians from the UK and Ireland have attended including; Dara Ó Briain, Ed Byrne and Eddie Izzard. [4] [5] The festival became referred to by RTE as the "Best Little Comedy Festival in the world". [6] The festival has also been used as a way to launch the careers of comedians from outside the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. [7]

A tradition developed over the years that as a part of the festival, the Irish comedians would play a football match against comedians from the rest of the world for the Cat Cup. [4]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "My big week". Irish Times. Retrieved 10 March 2020.
  2. ↑ "Stellar line-up plays for Laughs". Irish Times. 7 May 2005. Retrieved 10 March 2020.
  3. ↑ "Smithwick's Cat Laughs Comedy Festival". Irish Independent. Retrieved 10 March 2020.
  4. 1 2 "Comedy festival cats out of the bag". Irish Independent. Retrieved 10 March 2020.
  5. ↑ "Kilkenny Cat Laughs 2019 announced". Buzz. Retrieved 10 March 2020.
  6. ↑ "Cat Laughs celebrates 25 years with all-star comedy line up". RTE. 20 March 2019. Retrieved 10 March 2020.
  7. ↑ "I was a psycho always blaming other people- comedian Bill Burr". Irish Independent. Retrieved 10 March 2020.
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