ARTSCAPE FROM EDINBURGH:Brian Boyd. Time was when it seemed like all an Irish comic had to do was turn up at the Edinburgh Fringe to earn a Perrier prize nomination but for the last few years the biggest prize in comedy has remained resolutely Irish-free.
The lean years look to be over now with talk of not one but two Irish comics making the shortlist of five acts, which will be announced next Wednesday afternoon. Dublin comic David O'Doherty is the most likely Perrier candidate - his shows at the Gilded Balloon have been selling out every night and he has attracted superlative reviews. Most nights at O'Doherty's shows, the first few rows are taken up by fellow comics - a rare feat, seeing as how most comics on the Fringe are so wrapped up in their own shows that they are blissfully unaware that there is in fact a festival taking place around them.
A possible rather than probable Perrier hope is fellow Dublin comic Andrew Maxwell, whose show at the new Pod Deco venue is his most mature work to date. Pulling away from his "cheeky chappie" persona of old, Maxwell has produced a thoughtful and entertaining show that is a hit with critics and audiences alike.
This year the Perrier panel (made up of mainly of British newspaper comedy critics) might even - shock, horror - nominate a woman. The award has only once been won by a woman in its 22-year history (Jenny Éclair in 1995) but this year strong shows by British acts Lucy Porter and Natalie Hynes are making aimpression. Porter was tipped to win the Perrier last year but didn't even make the shortlist, which was a cruel oversight. The overall winner of this year's award will be announced at midnight on Saturday, August 28th.
You can't move on the Fringe this year without coming up against a porn-related show, two of the better ones being Dirty Fan Male, a collection of letters written by dirty old men to pin-up girls, and Porn Idol, in which a real porn film star relates his experiences of working in the XXX genre. Not so long ago this types of show would have been denounced as filth and depravity; now they're seen as legitimate.
This is possibly because all the self-righteous ire this year is being aimed solely at Tim Fountain's controversial Sex Addict show at the Assembly Rooms. In the show, Fountain goes on to the Gaydar website to meet up with men in the Edinburgh area for a one-night stand. The idea was that he would select five or six candidates each night and the audience would vote on which one he should "shag" - a sort of a "Gay Idol", if you like.
The first problem the likeable, if very blunt Fountain (who comes across as a mix between Alan Bennett and Graham Norton) encountered was when the owners of the Gaydar website threatened him with legal action for using the site in his show, citing reasons of "privacy". Then it emerged that Fountain was not in fact cycling off after his show each night for a sexual encounter - instead, he was cycling around the block and then heading into the Assembly Rooms bar for a drink. Once people realised what was going on, Fountain released a statement a few days ago explaining his actions:
"The show is an exploration of Internet sex. However, I did not wish to compromise anyone's privacy and safety, except my own. It was for this reason that I decided to invent the profiles of all the people I claim to have slept with during the festival and also create a stooge who each night came on to me using a fake profile and fake Edinburgh address. The stooge is actually a friend of mine who lives in Torquay (of all places). As a result, no real person's name or address has been used in the show."
The statement ended with Fountain stressing: "I do wish, however, to make it clear that I have had sex with over 5,000 men and one lesbian - and a gothic Norwegian hairdresser as well." That's that cleared up then.
In other Irish news, Des Bishop's stage version of his Network 2 programme about working in minimum-wage jobs around Ireland is a Fringe hit. But Bishop remains perplexed by the make-up of his audience.
"I thought I'd have to tweak the show a bit for British audiences but for the entire first week the audience seemed to consist entirely of Cork people," he says. "Apparently there's a big thing of Cork students coming to work in Edinburgh for the summer and they all seemed to have descended en masse for my show. The strange thing is they've all seen the TV show so when I'm introducing a new story they all start laughing after the first sentence because they know what's coming. It's great and I love it. But I am hoping to get more non-Irish people in soon."
Offaly and Limerick are also more than holding their own at the Fringe with newcomer Neil Delamere (Offaly) making an impressive Festival début with a smart and sassy show - he's the "new Ed Byrne" apparently. While Karl Spain (Limerick) has put together a strong piece of work which has done wonders for his Edinburgh profile. And aren't these new Irish comics much more pleasant and well-rounded as people than the shower that went before them?
Back to matters of porn (it really is all the rage this year). The people behind a Fringe production of Waiting For Godot decided to publicise their show by making up fake prostitute calling cards and leaving them in telephone booths around the city - the number on the card was for the box office of their venue. All very well in a silly-Edinburgh-publicity-stunt sort of way except that the poor people manning the phones at the box office have been besieged by callers who aren't much interested in existential drama.
The ridiculous to the sublime: Bill Hicks is back on the Fringe and, man, is he pissed off. George Bush, the fallout from 9/11 and the second Iraq war all get the devastatingly funny Hicks treatment at the Pleasance. Actor Chaz Early plays Hicks in the show and the idea is that, 10 years after his death, Hicks returns to expound on contemporary issues. Perhaps unnecessary though is the bit where Early/Hicks rails against his family for "cashing in" on the comic's name by releasing posthumous recordings. Whether this bit of spite has anything to do with the warning on the show's poster - "Bill Hicks's family and estate have no connection with this play" - is debatable.
Lucy Porter, as well as doing her own stand-up show, makes a brief appearance each day in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. "I keep thinking about that actor in Edinburgh one year who had only one line as a French soldier in a play about the Napoleonic wars," she says. "The line was 'Hark! I hear the cannons roar' and he rehearsed it day and night, playing with stresses and perfecting his French accent. On the opening night he heard the actual - very loud - sound effect of the cannon's roar for the first time and his line came out as "What the fuck was that?"