Neil Delamere's world of comic relief

Neil Delamere says laughter eases tension.

¦ What makes you laugh?

“My family. My niece, who’s only three, said: ‘I’ve eaten something that’s disagreed with me’. I asked what and she said ‘Lego’. Children are so effervescent and uplifting and constantly amusing.

“I was over in my uncle’s and I caught him ripping up utility bills with his name on them. He’s about 70. I said, ‘fair play, it’s amazing you’re so aware of identity fraud’. He said ‘Ah…I’m only just using someone else’s bin and I don’t want him to know’.”

¦ When did laughter get you out of a sticky situation?

“At a gig in Edinburgh, there was a lad of 16 in the front row. I asked what he wanted to do when he grew up. He said: ‘I want to join the army’. I said: ‘you want to join the British Army — an army that has been involved in two wars?’ A voice in the audience went ‘one war’. I said: ‘are there not two wars — Iraq and Afghanistan?’ The voice replied: ‘Soldiers are in airports in Iraq, just wanting to come home’.

“There was a pause — there’s a level of tension already embedded in a situation where an Irish person’s talking about the British Army. Then someone else in the audience spoke up: ‘You mean to say the duty free is what’s keeping you in Iraq?’ There was a big massive release of tension. That got us out of a very sticky situation.”

¦ Do you look on the bright side of life?

“Irish people have an inherent layer of pessimism provided to us by history. I think that’s just a surface layer. We expect things to go badly but, secretly, we hope they won’t. When I was working in software engineering around 2000-2001, the doc.com bubble burst. Lots of friends were being laid off. It was a stressful time, we were all wondering would we keep our jobs.

“But you have to press on. I left of my own accord and picked up another career. I wanted to approach it the best possible way, see the crisis as a moment of opportunity. So I left and now I’m doing stand-up comedy, which I love.”

¦ Why do people pay to be made laugh?

“It’s another form of escapism, to leave behind what’s causing you worry — two hours when you can check your baggage at the door and get caught up in someone talking rubbish and telling tall tales. There’s a boom in comedy at the moment. In a recession, when people don’t have much discretionary income, they go to events for a different reason. They want something that will release them from the barrage of negativity.”

¦ Neil Delamere will appear at the Cork Opera House on Saturday, Mar 8, at 8pm. Full tour info at www.neildelamere.com/gigs. Follow Neil on Twitter @neildelamere.