Joe Rooney, one of the unique and hilarious voices in Irish comedy, headlines Irish Comedy Night at the Burren, 247 Elm Street (Davis Square), Somerville on Wednesday, August 27.
Rooney, made a splash nationally with his “Father Damo” character on the iconic BBC series “Father Ted” (“Brilliantly played,” wrote John Boland in the Sunday Independent) and later starred in the show “Killinaskully,” appears with another Irish import, Dublic Comedy Cellar host Andrew Stanley. Two Boston comedians, Dave Rattigan and Steve Macone, will also perform short sets.
A longtime standup comedian, Rooney gained a measure of fame with his “Father Ramo” character on the iconic BBC series “Father Ted” and later starred in the show “Killinaskully.” He has recently appeared in the BBC/RTE series “Roy” and the stage version of “The Shawshank Redemption” starring Omijd Djalili (“Gladiator”) during it’s five star run at the Edinburgh Theatre festival and The Gaiety Theatre, Dublin. “With his slicked back hair and gifts as a musical comic you can see why he was cast as the cool, disaffected Damo,” a critic wrote in the publication Chortle in 2013. “Yet Rooney's pastiches of The Dubliners songbook reveal a mischievous insight beyond the rebel-without-a-brain-cell of his on-screen counterpart.”
As a stand up comedian, he has been making people laugh for the last twenty years from places as far flung as Atlanta to Hong Kong, from Oman to Oslo and from Dubai to Dublin and everywhere in between except for Longford. With observations about everything from fatherhood to one-armed chemistry teachers, his infectious enthusiasm leaves audiences of all ages and nationalities in paroxysms of laughter. His act includes musical bits that make an impression on audiences. As The Stage wrote, “Rooney is very funny, but it is with his guitar in his hands that he becomes unmissable....his impressions of seventies rockers singing nursery rhymes brings tears to the eyes.”
Having performed worldwide at the Montreal, Australian and Edinburgh Comedy Festivals and becoming a regular fixture on the Kilkenny Cat Laughs Calendar, Andrew Stanley is one of the top comics working the worldwide comedy circuit. Whether it's performing as resident MC in numerous clubs around Ireland, one of which is the legendary Comedy Cellar in Dublin, or as a quality act in his own right Andrew is always high energy and quick witted enough to keep audiences thoroughly entertained.
Andrew has travelled to the Adelaide Fringe Festival twice, performed at the Melbourne, Sydney and New Zealand Comedy Festivals and has been invited to the prestigious Just For Laughs comedy festival in Montreal. He also travelled to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2006 where he teamed up with Australian comic Damian Clark in a show entitled 'I Dare Ya' (Great late night fun - Independent On Sunday) which was then turned into a highly successful TV show on RTE2 in 2007, still the highest rated debut comedy show on Irish TV.
“It’s rare, outside of the Fringe, to see a comic so clearly destined for the top, but with astonishingly good observational material delivered and timed to perfection there’s no doubt about the destination of the young Irishman’s career,” wrote the publication The Scotsman, which also referred to him as a “comedy tsunami.”
Rattigan is a Boston comedian whose material has been heard on XM-Sirius Satellite Radio. Among many places he’s played: Dublin and Kilkenny, where he performed on a Boston fringe show during the Cat Laughs Comedy Festival.
Macone is the host of the Burren’s regular Wednesday night comedy show, as well as one of Boston’s top young comedians and a writer whose work has appeared in The Onion, The New Yorker, Boston Phoenix, Boston Globe Magazine, and more.
The doors open at 6:30 p.m. for the 7:30 p.m. show. Tickets are $22 in advance, $25 at the door.
For more information, go to www.scampscomedy.com, www.theburren.com, or www.brownpapertickets.com.
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