What’s it like working on Ireland’s top festivals? Ciara McDonnell meets the people behind your summer calendar who share what it’s like backstage at this year’s hottest tickets.

As we know, Ireland has fallen on tough times when it comes to the Eurovision Song Contest.

Choreographer Caroline Bowditch didn’t get Mexican artist Frida Kahlo until she discovered she too was disabled, she tells Ellie O’Byrne.

You can’t beat a round of applause.I don’t know if it’s the approval that I love when I’m doing stand-up.

WHILE researching female rural stereotypes in Irish theatre, for her dissertation in theatre studies at London’s Goldsmith College, Áine Ryan decided to write her own character “to add to the canon”. This 22-year-old from Tipperary, speaking on the phone from her travels in Vietnam, devised a character and then a play.

Jack Lukeman headlines a gig at Everyman Cork tomorrow, writes Ed Power

EILISH O’CARROLL, the sister of comedian Brendan O’Carroll, is still reeling at the death of their brother, Gerry, in October. Even in the midst of grief, however, O’Carroll is pressing on with her one-woman stage show.

The Finance Minister, Michael Noonan, told Sinn Féin to hire background people “who can add” in a forceful put down of the party’s economic policies.

Remember when Des Bishop went to the Gaeltacht to immerse himself in a new language? Well, he’s done it again.

The Rubberbandits have done it again with a new video that is bound to amuse and cause offence in equal measure.

GAH! Too late! The message on the page reads: THIS PROJECT IS FUNDED! Now I feel left out. I could have been in at the start but now I’m pressing my nose against the glass as the funders and the fundees smile inside.

Gabriel Byrne guest-stars in the latest video from Limerick comedy duo The Rubberbandits, and the language out of him is something fierce.

What has made Stones in His Pockets such an enduring success is its appeal to the imagination of audiences, says director, Ian McElhinney, who is married to its author, Marie Jones.

IT BEGAN with a four-hour car ride, a ferry full of merry priests, nuns, bishops and hairy babies, and it got stranger from there.

Irish comedian Dylan Moran has signed a deal with ABC studios in the US to create, write, and star in the pilot episode of a planned new series.

DO you want to be a writer? Novelist AL Kennedy’s book, On Writing, might be a guide. Kennedy will appear at next week’s Mountains to Sea book festival in Dublin.

Dublin plays host to a three-day festival of international actor-led theatre next week, says Pádraic Killeen

MARIA Tecce is the new Nuala — the latest to join comedy singing trio, The Nualas.

Madness frontman Suggs found out his father had died from Wikipedia.

Irish band The Rubberbandits were fuming when organisers of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where they are appearing next month, named their country of origin as England.

A West Cork town is set to be transformed into an exotic jungle location with its own safari trail and wild animals such as tigers and orangutans.

LAUGHING with friends releases feelgood brain chemicals, which also relieve pain.

IMAGINE working every minute towards something for weeks, months and years and it all came down to one moment.

MORE than 25 comedians from seven countries will descend on Co Tipperary this weekend for what’s become one of the most popular comedy festivals in the country.

Ireland’s boutique music festival will open in style tomorrow with a party atmosphere set to match its carnival setting.

A comic was today urged to abandon shows in Liverpool after being booed off stage for making a joke about Madeleine McCann and gun victim Rhys Jones.

A musical featuring Osama bin Laden has premiered at a Scottish comedy festival.

People are packing into one of the country’s biggest comedy festivals this weekend to escape the misery of the seemingly endless summer rain.

The launch of TV funnyman Ricky Gervais' Fringe show went with a bang today.

Theatre and dance acts are invading far-flung places all over the globe as part of a bid to promote Irish culture.

THE Edinburgh fringe festival has been hit by a row about anti-Semitism after two comics were accused of making “Holocaust gags”.

CULTURE Ireland yesterday announced €1 million in funding for groups promoting Irish arts and culture abroad.

A former BBC comedy writer won the prestigious Perrier Award with a show in which she plays eight different characters, it was announced today.

Culture Ireland, established to promote Irish arts abroad, has awarded grants of more than €400,000 to support international activities.

AWARD-winning author, broadcaster and humorist Pete McCarthy, whose travel book McCarthy’s Bar was an international bestseller, has died in England.

The voice of one of TV’s best-loved characters is raising laughs – and eyebrows – at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival, it emerged today.

Christian Slater may miss his British stage debut after getting chicken pox.

One of the biggest arts festivals in the world, featuring performances from stars including Jo Brand and Bill Bailey, was officially getting under way today.

A STAND-UP comedian who gatecrashes events dressed as Osama bin Laden was the man who burst into Prince William’s 21st birthday party, his father claimed today.

Susan Sarandon has called for the retrial of a Scottish man awaiting execution in America.

Protesters were today expected to picket one of Britain’s top comedy awards over its sponsor’s marketing tactics.

The winner of this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival’s most prestigious comedy award was today named as Gareth Marenghi.