Friends call her ‘a tart for a laugh’ which pretty much sums up Irish actress, comedian and writer Aisling Bea’s motive for doing comedy. ‘I’m just addicted to making people laugh,” she told Alice Jones for The Independent, before embarking on her second Edinburgh Fringe gig with Plan Bea during the entire month of August. The “Irish motormouth with an alarming range of rubbery facial expressions”, as Alice described her, has built up an impressive comic CV over the three years she has been doing stand-up with appearances on all the mainstream shows, including QI, Live At The Apollo, Never mind The Buzzcocks, Would I Lie To You and Celebrity Squares. Last year she collected the British Comedy Award for Best Female TV Comedian after winning the So You Think You’re Funny Award at Edinburgh the previous year. The Irish Tattler even named her it’s Entertainment Women of the Year in 2013.

Prior to her stint in Edinburgh, Aisling did some Fringe foreplay at London’s Leicester Square Theatre, where I left this sketch for her to sign.’Bea’ is actually her stage name, a homage to her late father-B for Brian-which she adopted at drama school because their was already an Aisling O’Sullivan. If you want to catch her live, ‘bea’ at the Leicester Square Theatre on Monday 14 September when she joins Jo Brand, Mae Martin, Kerry Godliman, Sara Pascoe and a host of others in Funny Ha Ha for the Live Life Safe campaign and the Suzy Lamplugh Trust or two days later in the Big Top at the Greenwich Comedy Festival.