Celebrating its fifth anniversary, it would only seem right and proper to pause for thought on where Murphy's Cat Laughs goes from here, but there's no key on this typewriter for a shrug of the shoulders. Now settled into a groove, the festival is not one of those "cultural events" where people sit around a table talking about "demographics" and "market penetration"; it just trundles along in its own casual inimitable fashion with merely a tweak here or there to jolly things along. If it ain't broke . . .
The consensus seems to be that the familiarity of the line-up (all the old favourites were present and correct this year) works in its favour, in that audiences have built up their own Marble City relationship with the likes of Rich Hall, Owen O'Neill and Dom Irrera and are happy for that to prosper.
Whereas in other festivals the comics are tripping over themselves with "new" and "previously unheard" material as they desperately try to convince TV people that they're not as bad as they used to be, you get the feeling from Cat Laughs that the performers are here because they want to be and not because they should be for the sake of their careers.
Because it's "out of competition", the gig could go either way: performers might hold back their serious new stuff for Edinburgh and content themselves with lazily flicking through the back pages of their material or they might play some of the best gigs they've ever done by dint of the fact that the heat is off, it's a bank holiday weekend, and anything goes. Invariably, it's the latter that wins out and in so doing gives the festival its unique, almost improvised, atmosphere.
The same "troika" style line-up (Irish/British/American) that has been in place since year one is a clever bit of billing. Team Ireland always do well by virtue of the fact that they speak the vernacular and and can go to the local places that the others can't, while the British acts - like Johnny Vegas, Phil Kay, Jeff Green and Armando Iannucci - get the crowds in by virtue of their television profile in multi-channel land.
The Americans are a different kettle of cats, most of them previously unheard off. They range from doing generic Bill 'n' Monica schtik to the truly wonderful. It has been a coincidental tradition that each year Cat Laughs boasts an American "find" - in 1997 it was Harland Williams, last year it was Dave Attell, and this year the award goes to Mitch Hedburg.
A Kurt Cobain lookalike who can barely bring himself to look at the audience, Hedburg drank an interesting cocktail of cider and Pernod while reciting his material. Whether he was explaining why his favourite number was "four billion" or why his favourite letter was "the lower case c", Hedburg as good as stole the festival with some deliciously idiosyncratic and thoroughly inspired material. The reference points, if you need some, are that he is a hybrid mix of Harland Williams and Dave Attell - and that last sentence is really the whole point of Cat Laughs: introducing us to great new acts we would never have seen otherwise.
Running Hedburg all the way as comic of the festival was the comparative newcomer, Peter Kay. The man from Bolton who went from working as a cinema usher to becoming a Perrier nominee and getting his own Channel 4 special in less than 12 months is a curious mix of old-style end-of-the-pier entertainer and knowing modern-style gagster. The man who gives observational comedy a good name does that rare thing of finding fresh ground in the well-ploughed field of "do you remember when . . . " scenarios.
Using the same parochial north of England vernacular that so distinguishes the writing of Alan Bennett and the lyrics of Morrissey, Kay's popular culture references, whether about the TV programme Who Wants To Be A Millionaire or overly-enthusiastic DJs, were frighteningly accurate.
He devoted a large part of his set to Excuse Me While I Kiss This Guy style mishearings of popular music lyrics (famously named after a misheard Jimi Hendrix lyric) and while it's all entertaining the first time around, it can grate after a while.
Elsewhere there was some good stuff from Barry Murphy explaining that his brother was "so weird" he's been banned from One Hour Photo, a class relationship routine from the intense Adam Bloom (that can't be repeated), some terrific improvised work from BBC2's Armando Iannucci and a good, non-patronising line from US comic Scott Capurro about "Ireland being the only third-world country where it's safe to drink the water".
From the black US female experience of Rene Hicks to the demented street preaching of Scotsman Phil Kay, to the tough New York humour of Dom Irrera, there was a style and genre for almost everyone. Throw in the Cartoon festival, the new Kilkenny Or Bussed mobile gig and you're talking about a fairly comprehensive comedy package.
Five years ago, Cat Laughs seemed like an eccentric idea; now it's an institution.
