Monday evening. Just back from three weeks’ island hopping in Greece. Meeting with Sue Collins, collaborator since olden times with The Nualas. (“The Nualas are the new Rock ’n’ Roll”, The Independent, London, 1999). We sit outside Café Mocha. The sun beams down. It starts to rain. Ahh, home. Phone rings. Offer to write Laughlines. Brief? Your take on the comedy scene. Scene, what scene? Ermmm. Ok, deadline? Tomorrow morning. Fee? No fee, that ok? Grand.

Ahh, home.

Sue and I have an RTE commission to write a six part TV comedy series. We’ve written the meaty bones of it already. I get the update. Our contract continues its long orbit through Top London Agent, Hot Dublin Producer and a man in an office. Oh.

Other news? Barry Murphy and Dave McSavage were reportedly hilarious as The German Proclaimers in the last Comedy Circus in Vicar St. Sorry I missed it. Speak of the devil, Dave walks by. Say I’m writing this. He says I can say he’s fucked in the head, scared of death, and has a drinking problem. Thanks for the scoop! Might get the cover! Excited about foray into free journalism!!! And there’s more. He’s cooking big prawns on skewers in his new copper pan for tea. Post-facto bon appetito Dave.

Bid Sue adieu, head over to the Dublin Comedy Improv, really the best night of comedy Dublin has to offer. Michelle Read, Brendan Dempsey, Joe Rooney and Tara Flynn are the players this evening. Brilliant stuff. In one scene Brendan and Joe are mad scientists who have created “duck-billed platymice with legs on their backs”. Michelle is the detective who calls a halt to their evil plans – she’s a specialist, having previously stopped an attempt to “splice spiders with women to produce eight-legged super women who can spin their own bra and knickers”. In another scene Joe is a priest who sees his funeral home as “the pimphouse of God”– he offers to cleanse a mourning Tara by “bathing her in the juices of the Lord”. They storm.

Brendan is recently back from the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal. Booked to do two slots, he ended up doing eight; including ‘The Talk Of The Festival’ a showcase for previously ‘unknown’ comics who were creating a buzz. People buzzing about Bren included Drew Carey, whom he ended up hanging out with, and Dom Irrera, who asked him to guest in his show. Just goes to show – it pays to be funny.

Walk home alone through dark Dublin, writing this in my head. Catch snatches of starry sky through the night clouds over an illuminated St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

It’s a lovely scene.

The Dublin Comedy Improv, every Monday 9pm, upstairs at The International Bar, Wicklow Street. Michelle Read’s play The Other Side is opening in The Project Theatre on August 13. Anne Gildea plays the West Belfast Festival on August 3. Anne & Sue’s show will be on telly next year