Cat Laughs is a roaring success with Kilkenny audiences

Sold out shows and blazing sunshine were the hallmarks of a fantastic Cat Laughs bank holiday weekend.

The team behind the Kilkenny Cat Laughs celebrated 30 years of success with 18 new acts at the festival along with a host of household names including Dara O'Briain, Nei Delamere, Des Bishop and Colin Murphy. In total 37 comedians took part in the festival, which is a highlight of Kilkenny’s social calendar, drawing massive local audiences along with visitors.

Nine of the newbie comedians performed at the opening show, Chris Kent and friends at Set Theatre on Friday and received a rapportous reception.

Other top names on the comedy circuit that took part in the festival included Joanne McNally, Gearóid Farrelly, Karl Spain, Shane Todd and David O’Doherty. Joanne McNally was one of the star performers at the festival easefully curating her performances to create a bellyful of laughs in the audience.

One of the festival highlights was the Nine Lives show which featured nine comedians performing at different venues each evening providing fast snippets of humour from multiple performers with each show with its own MC.

On Saturday night at Hotel Kilkenny nine of the best acts took to the stage of a packed Skyline Suite at Hotel Kilkenny and were entertained by some of the best comedians on the circuit at the moment.

Vlad IIich was one of the stars of this year's festival, a Macedonian living in London, who gave audiences a hilarious insight into his own life experiences. Neil Delamere also shone on stage, interacting with the audience to provide moments of great, unscripted comedy as well as his usually brilliant own material.

Dara O’Briain also showcased some of his new and evolving work on a delighted audience at his show at Cleere’s on Sunday. The comedian, who has been a regular face at the festival over the years also shared his own personal story of adoption and of recently finding that he has a large extended family in Castlecomer.

The show finale Goodnight Cats was a cracking show with comedians bringing down the house with uncontrollable laughter - a fitting end to a fine festival.