Delamere has an easy crossover from stage to studio

His love of Cork audiences will see comedian Neil Delamere record his upcoming live DVD at the city’s Everyman theatre, writes Richard Fitzpatrick

NEIL DELAMERE will record his upcoming live DVD at Cork’s Everyman, which will be based on highlights from a couple of Everyman gigs, including a date on September 5.

He has a special grá for the venue and for audiences in Cork, although he says you have to tread carefully with them. “You could be standing on stage in Cork, suggesting that they’re good craic and special while not liking to reinforce the fact that they think they’re special as well. You don’t want to tell them you like them even though they know you do, and you know you do as well.”

Delamere is double-jobbing these days. Today FM snapped him up to do a morning show, Neil Delamere’s Sunday Best, which began in April. He’s also been covering Anton Savage’s slot on occasion. He makes a distinction between the two formats — radio and live stand-up.

“The great thing about radio is that all it has to be is compelling, as if that was easy! Whereas stand-up has to be funny, full stop. Radio can be funny, sad or interesting. As long as some interest is piqued that’s your job done.”

Filming DVD (favourite bits from last 2 live shows) Sep 5 in @EverymanCork Proceeds from the gig go to @IrishCancerSoc Please RT

— Neil Delamere (@neildelamere) July 2, 2015

He adds that he’s started to analyse other radio presenters now that he’s become one of their breed, just as he involuntarily deconstructs comedy gigs.

“Before you become a stand-up, you go to gigs and you consume them in a binary sense — I laughed or I didn’t; 1 or 0. You become a comic and you know there are tricks and patterns and rhythms so you consume it in a different way.

“When you’ve been doing comedy for 10 or 12 years, you see comics less frequently but when you go and see someone, and you can’t see the strings — that it is so brilliant you don’t know where the humour is coming from — it’s immensely satisfying.

“If you watch Dylan Moran, Daniel Kitson or somebody like Sam Simmons, this absurdist guy from Australia, who is completely surreal and out there, you can be sitting there and thinking, I don’t know how you even started to come up with that and yet it is so ridiculously funny.”

Delamere is a good fit for a radio show host because of his easy charm and quick wit. His fascination with life’s curiosities — which has been used to front and script several popular television documentaries on RTÉ, including award-winners on St Patrick and the Vikings — is suited to his show’s news and magazine-style format. He gets to roam off reservation for all kinds of obscure enquiries.

Interesting highlights have been a discussion about the life of William Lamport, the Co Wexford-born pirate, poet, spy and lover, whose swashbuckling adventures in the 17th century became the basis for Johnston McCulley’s best-selling El Zorro novels and, of course, several spin-off screen versions.

Delamere also chatted earlier in the summer to a filmmaker about the history of Ireland’s public telephone boxes. There were once 5,000 of them scattered around the country. Who knew that they were made from concrete and that the brass finish on them had to be polished by maintenance staff?

After our interview concludes, Delamere says he’ll return to the book he’s reading for an interview he’ll conduct about what life will be like on Mars if humans had to set up residence there. He says, among other things, that we will get our oxygen from the water on the planet.

“We would also have to live in structures underground because that would stop damage from radiation. The main thing, though, is that you would have to wear a suit all the time because there is no pressure on Mars. That’ll be the thing that will be most jarring there.”

Catch Neil Delamere's The Fresh Prince of Delamere @EverymanCork for a Live DVD recording! 5/9 http://t.co/f8j2JuvZUl pic.twitter.com/ou5pFMgS70

— Cork Information (@whatsoncork) July 8, 2015

Neil Delamere — The Fresh Prince of Delamere is at 9.15 pm, Saturday, September 5, Everyman, 15 MacCurtain St, Cork. Tickets cost €10 and proceeds will be donated to the Irish Cancer Society. www.everymancork.com.