This will be the 18th year of the Fringe, and continuing with the numbers, the festival stages up to 525 events in over 40 venues, and they tell us that 150,000 people have at least one Fringe experience during the Festival. I plan to have several myself!

There’s already a big red circle and star and pointy arrows beside Briefs in Gaelick’s Festival programme. This Australian circus show, described as “Burlesque with Balls” comes fresh from sell-out shows in Sydney, London and Edinburgh. The Festival tells us it’s “very much a circus for adults…. adults who don’t mind strong language, nudity and the use of a strobe machine!” You had us at… “very”! Running for nine nights in the Meeting House Square venue of Dublin’s Temple Bar, where the eclectic Danish band, Efterklang will also play for one night only on the 14th with the Major Lift Orchestra. Snag those tickets now, we don’t want to hear any whinging when they’re gone!

If you’re raging you missed Come Rhyme With Me in Outhouse last February, now is your chance to make it all better. Una Mulally and Vickey Curtis are back with an evening of spoken word, an “exploration into the commas and full stops that punctuate the state of our nation.” For two nights only in Outhouse on Capel Street, get there!

We love THISISPOPBABY. I mean, we want to marry them and have their THISISPOPBABY babies. So we are full of squee at the knowledge that they have a new show, currently selling hot-cake-stylee. The geniuses behind the wildly successful Alice in Funderland and last year’s The Year of Magical Wanking are back with Elevator, a taut and fractured fairytale thriller about money, leisure and the breakdown of personal responsibility. Written by Phillip McMahon and directed by Wayne Jordan (hey, we know them!) we urge you to get yizzer selves to Project Arts Centre to catch this show.

For those of you about to bop, we recruit you! To go to DISCOnnected, a production that promises to take you clubbing like you’ve never clubbed before, taking place in The Kitchen nightclub in the Clarence Hotel. It might be the first time I get to go without hearing, “Yer not gettin’ in with dem shoez…”

Heads up for another peep we know, we are looking forward very much to Singlehood by Una McKevitt, who has teamed up with Dan and Becs writer, David Coffey to explore the highs and lows of being single or being in a relationship, as informed by extensive research!

We also like the look of Constellations from PaperDolls, an circus-infused show; the triumphant return of the Ponydance crew (lock up your… everyone!) and the intriguingly titled Healthy Lovely Ladies Exercise Studio for Maximum Sex Attraction, who pledge that  “In 60 minutes your mind will expand like the heaving bosom of a yodelling Valkyrie.”  See you there!

Absolut Fringe runs from 8^th to 23^rd September in venues all over Dublin.  To book all your tickets here or call the box office at 1850 374 643.

All images courtesy of Dublin Fringe Festival