Des Bishop was born in New York to Irish parents and moved to Ireland at the age of 14. This has given him a unique outlook on life with his emotionally repressed Irish upbringing at odds with the open outlook of his US friends.

In the show Bishop deals with his own issues with intimacy and why men so often turn to comedy at emotional moments. With tales from his childhood in New York and how things changed during his teenage years in Ireland, moving on to a more recent trip to Australia Bishop shows his engaging and likable personality and the laughter rate stays high.

On the night I saw the show the biggest laughs came from two impromptu moments – the first provided by a man in the audience who left for a toilet break, and being sightly the worse for wear, had trouble finding his seat on his return. Not obviously hilarious, but with the show already disrupted, Des showed he has the knack of finding the funny in any situation. The second  came about when Des was talking about his trip to Australia, the same trip that features in Jason Byrne's show, when Jason dislocated his shoulder. Bishop's side of the story doesn't usually appear in his show but for one night only it provided one of the highlights of my Fringe.

Des Bishop is a big star in Ireland, both as a stand up and star of several TV documentaries and on the basis of this show he really deserves the same success on this side of the Irish Sea.

 Des Bishop: Desfunctional

Company: - Lisa Richards & EdCom

Venue: - Assembly  V 3

Dates: - 3 to 3o August 2009 ( not 17, 24)

Times: - 20.45 to 21.45

Fringe Programme Page: - p43