Delamere always delivers

Cavan comedy fans are in for a treat this week as comedian Neil Delamere brings his new show ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Pensioner’ to the Hotel Kilmore on Friday, December 29.
The Offaly native says this show is different from previous offerings.
“Normally I would just go and write down the funniest things that have happened to me in the last year and also the mad stuff that goes on around the world, like Brexit and Trump and all that sort of stuff, and then I go out and talk fast for an hour and 15, or an hour and 20 minutes and be as funny as you can - whereas this show is a bit more themed I suppose, it has a beginning, a middle, and an end.”
The show centres around Neil recently helping his dad deliver ‘Meals on Wheels’.
“He is in his 80s and he delivers the ‘Meals on Wheels’ to people younger than himself, so he asked me to help out with the deliveries. He said to me before we started: ‘So, you go into the house and you talk to the people - and talk to every single person because they might be socially isolated.
“So the first three meals took maybe 15 minutes, then it all changed on the fourth house. Dad delivered the Meals on Wheels and a fella gave him a tip on a horse that was running in 25 minutes! 
“We tore through the next six Meals on Wheels; we were horsing roast chickens out the window, so all the kind of good intentions went out the window when a few quid came into it.”
Although the new show has a universal theme, Neil concedes that if something momentous happens in Cavan he’ll reference it.
“What I think probably will come in is, Cavan being a border county there will be a lot of Brexit stuff, over the border stuff, all that sort of crack, because it is so prevalent at the minute.” The Edenderry funny man admits a certain pleasure in performing in Cavan - he believes border people have a slightly more nuanced view of the world. “I tell you what I see as a regional difference: it might be totally different in my experience between say Wicklow and Cavan, Monaghan, Donegal. Wicklow is like Dublin it’s very close to it, I think they go a bit more by the rules, whereas I think as you get further away from Dublin and further away from the places that make the laws, I find there is a bit of a wildness of spirit in Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan. I think there’s a kind of: ‘ah we’ll do our own thing and you just look over there’. And of course comedians love that because our whole thing is being a little bit of a trickster spirit, so I do enjoy playing those places a bit more than I enjoy playing the ones that abide by all the rules.”
Pressed to tell us his favourite Cavan joke, he hesitates before claiming diplomatic immunity: “I couldn’t possibly comment, I have a couple of jokes in my head, but as my brother married into the Cavan side of the country, I would get into trouble with my in-laws if I told any. They’re from Bruskey and up Ballinagh area, so I’d be killed if I ever went up there again.”

Tickets
Neil Delamere will take to the stage at the Hotel Kilmore in Cavan this Friday, December 28. Tickets €25 from the hotel or ticketmaster.