The Kilkenny Cat Laughs, Ireland’s annual craic pilgrimage, has been heralding the start of the summer since 1995. The Cat Laughs Festival has been described by The Guardian as “the best little comedy festival in the world” and they have just announced a new branch called ‘Stray’.

This medieval city in right at the heart of Ireland has played host to world-class comedy and the best-treated audiences in the world. Cat Laughs has a reputation for being the comedians’ comedy festival and creating that atmosphere where anything can happen.

Cat Laughs has helped nurture the fledgeling careers of Irish acts like Dara Ó Briain, Graham Norton, Dylan Moran, Maeve Higgins, Ardal O’Hanlon, Alison Spittle and many, many more.

The full programme for this year’s festival will be announced at the beginning of March. While we wait, Cat Laughs has announced the line-up of their new avenue of comic curation ‘Stray’, which will premiere at this year’s festival.

Here is what Firector/Producer duo Matt Smyth and Dan Colley had to say about this new venture:

“When we first started working with the festival we found it so interesting that so many people, when asked, would say that stand-up wasn’t ‘their thing’. So we’d be like, ‘but you like comedy right? to which they’d sort of defensively go ‘yeah of course, duh’.

“So we came up with STRAY.

“STRAY is the home at the Cat Laughs for the comedy that isn’t necessarily the stand-up you’d be used to seeing at Irish festivals, whether it’s weird one-offs, podcasts, gigs, cabaret or even anti-comedy (which when done right can be the most you’ll ever laugh).

“We’re trying it out and we hope you like it.”

‘Stray’ is for late-night explorers, day-time wanderers and the curious at heart. It will be full of guest-curated showcases, the podcasts you love, weird performance art, secret late-night craic.

Tickets for the Stray line-up are already on sale, here are some of our favourites that you should check out:

Reductress

Since 2013, Reductress editors, Quenn and Dikoda, have been powdering and contouring the face of online satire through articles like “Woman Decides It’s Too Much Labor to Describe The Concept of Emotional Labor”, “How To Smile At Your Birthday Brunch Even Though Life Is Slipping Through Your Fingers Like Sand” and “These Women Are Beautiful, Even Though They Are All Freshwater Catfish”.

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The Super Serious Show

The Super Serious Show is a showcase like no other and the perfect home for the emerging, the experimental and the frankly unclassifiable.

This array of affable oddballs keep audiences on their toes as they deftly flit between stand-up, sketch comedy, videos and plenty of other surprises along the way.

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The Blindboy Podcast

Blindboy Boatclub, one half of The Rubberbandits, has been dominating the Irish podcast charts since the debut of his eclectic and absurd show.

One part fiction, a pinch of politics and a heaped spoonful of lunacy go into each episode.

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Cat Laughs Festival 2018 runs from May 31 – June 04 in various venues across Kilkenny, for more info visit their website.