EOIN BUTLERtalks to Neil Delamere, stand-up comedian and captain on 'The Panel'
Your new stand-up show, 'Creme Delamere', takes place over a single day.It's about a day I spent in Stockholm and the things that happened there: I got thrown out of a museum, I nearly got run over and I ended up with a very tall Swedish girl and trying to . . . Well, you can probably take a guess at what I was trying to do.
Your stage persona is very easygoing. But some people who went to school with you told me that you were a high achiever and maybe even a bit of a nerd.A high achiever and a nerd . . . Can I pick either or? No, my family was reasonably academic so school was easy enough, I suppose. I was a decent student. I would take the mick in class a bit, of course. But I'd never get a detention. I wouldn't push it quite that far. As far as I was concerned, there was no point in getting detention for the very last thing you said.
Did you go to university?Yes, I studied computer programming. To be honest, I had absolutely no interest in it. It was just a stopgap measure. At that stage, I didn't know what I wanted to do with my career. The dot.com boom was happening and you were guaranteed a decent job out of computers. When I got out of college, about 80 per cent of the people in the company I ended up working for were under 25. So for a first job, it was brilliant craic.
When did you start considering a full-time career in comedy?I won the RTÉ Comedy Award in 2001. By that point, the dot.com bubble had burst and a lot of my friends had been laid off. Suddenly the job wasn't so much craic any more. I had a few quid from winning the competition, so I thought, ah sure, I'll give this comedy thing a go and we'll see what happens. As you've probably seen from my website, those computer skills have gone out the window now.
I like your website. Its got a sort of "How's it going? This is my website. Talkcha later" vibe.It's about as functional as you can get. I know I probably have to have some sort of presence on the net. Isn't that what they say? At the moment, though, it's sort of: Here is the very minimum of information that you may require. For further information, please look elsewhere.
Comedians have it easy, compared to the average rock band who have a whole crew in tow. You can afford to play almost anywhere.Absolutely, there are communities we can play to of British, Irish, American and Australian ex-pats all over the world.
Do you have to alter your material when you're playing abroad, change your references and stuff?You might have to change certain bits and pieces. But, generally speaking, in the last few years, I've been writing shows that are eventually going to be brought to the Edinburgh Festival and Australia. So I keep it pretty general. If you talk about your town, that's too local. But if you go even more local, and talk about the fellas who live on your street, that stuff is universal.
Neil Delamere plays Cork Opera House on March 7th, and Dublin’s Vicar Street on March 13th, 14th, 15th, 19th and 20th.
