Touch my cock!

WTF: Kilkenny Cat Laughs special

As the Carlsberg Cat Laughs Festival comes to an end in Kilkenny, here are some of the off-stage goings-on from the comedians' playground:

Stand-up Kevin Bridges was hit by food poisoning so severe he feared he was going blind at last week’s Cat Laughs festival in Kilkenny The comic’s vision became severely blurred after contracting an illness from eating a contaminated chicken wrap as he prepared to perform. But after medical treatment, the comic – fresh from his appearances at Glasgow’s SECC and Friday Night With Jonathan Ross – was able to make the shows. ‘It was horrific,’ he said. ‘I thought I was going blind. I could barely see anything.’ Vision can be affected by botulism, the most dangerous and potentially fatal type of food poisoning, but itcan be treated with an anti-toxin.

Far more important than any comedy is the Ireland vs the Rest Of The World football match – and Andy Parsons took the blame for the visitors’ 3-2 defeat, after scoring a decisive own goal.

We'll spare the blushes of the comedian who was excitedly telling anyone who would listen that Rage Against The Machine's frontman Zack de la Rocha had joined the festival club band to perform their hit Killing In The Name Of. It was actually Dead Cat Bounce's drummer Demian Fox.

Meanwhile, shoppers in Kilkenny at the weekend might have spotted a man in an odd wig and a stuffed bird shambling around the town centre inviting strangers to ‘touch my cock!’ Anyone who didn’t cut him a wide berth – and that includes the Gardai – might have spotted it was stand-up Andrew Maxwell, after a heavy night on the town.

There’s nothing like a festival to encourage tubby comics to get their kit off. Both Karl Spain and Fred Cooke snuck onstage during a Jason Byrne-conducted fashion show at a final-night gig on Monday, bellies exposed; while Justin Moorhouse crowdsurfed topless at the festival club not once, but two nights running. Watch it, lads, that’s James Corden’s material you’re stealing there… Readers of a sensitive disposition might want to look away now: