In Dublin's Fair City

Firstly I should apologise for the tardiness of this post, I've had a guest book added to my website which has caused no end of problems. Still it's all sorted now.

So, last Friday night I was in Dublin for the first of two shows at The Olympia Theatre (see photo) supporting Puppetry of the Penis. These shows were part of the Bulmers Comedy Festival - my old mate Mat Lucas was doing his Little Britain show at the mega-sized Point across town - and so the shows weren't 'normal'.

They'd run a new comedian competition and part of the winner's prize was to do a set before the main show began. He was introduced by the organiser of the festival and that meant that it really was a show of two halves.

It also meant that my time was cut back considerably. The plan was for me to do around 10 minutes and then introduce the boys.

As you can imagine, the 1500 strong audience (which comprised of about 1480 women and 20 men) were getting impatient, they wanted cock and lots of it. As I stood at the side of the stage while Dan announced me I could feel their anticipation. It added to my own, as I had no idea of what the hell I was gonna do, its been 12 years since I did a 10 minute spot.

My opening line was about how disappointed they must be, geared up for a couple of naked boys, and some old bird wanders out. I had em from there and ended up doing about 13 minutes to just the most amazing reception. The sound of 1500 people laughing is phenomenal. It's also very time consuming, I probably did about 5 minutes of material in that time. It was the most fantastic sensation.

The boys had a cracker too, the Irish girls sure know how to have fun. After the show ended I nipped outside the stage door for a smoke, not realising that the people leaving the circle exited just up the road.

Soon I was being inundated with compliments, people asking when I was gonna be doing my own show in Dublin (at this rate in another 10 years!), how funny I was etc etc. The best bit was two women who I would say were in their 60', dolled up for a night at the theatre, one stopped and said to me 'Look at her, wearing all her diamonds to see two pricks!' It just cracked me up...fabulous.

I walked round to the front of house where the boys were signing copies of the How To ... manual, and ended up signing about 50 of the books myself! I felt like bleedin Madonna I tells ya!

After the signing session was done, we went out for dinner at this fabulous place called Havana just up the road. One of the things I noticed immediately about the new Dublin is how European it is. I wasn't a huge fan after my last visit, but now I love the place! If there are any promoters out there who wanna book me, please do get in touch!

After a great meal of tapas/pinchos and lentil and chorizo stew, Zoha the camera girl and all round good egg and I wandered back to the hotel leaving the boys to go out on the lash. It was remarkable how safe we both felt. Walking back from the gig in some cities in the UK is an exercise is fear management, but not here. The streets were teeming with drunken people but there was no aggression anywhere.

On Saturday I had a wander round the shops but it was cut short by the actual weather not resembling the weather forecast in any way. Birkenstocks are not good in pouring rain! Back at the hotel I was greeted by the sight of about 80 American men dressed in full golf kit watching the Ryder Cup on the telly in the bar! I suppose it's no different to guys watching football in their team's shirts. Just made me giggle.

Saturday night's show was more of the same, lotsa laughs, lotsa praise and ego stroking, followed by fish and chips eaten in the hotel lobby. We had an early start in the morning, the flight wasn't till noon but after all the hassle coming out we wanted to make sure we actually got on the flight. This didn't stop the boys going out again tho. Oh to be young again....not.

Thank you Dublin...and thank you PotP for giving me a chance to revise my opinion.