IT'S been hard to stay optimistic during the past year of pandemic-induced lockdowns and paranoia, but Blame Game man Neil Delamere now has something concrete to look forward to: he's just announced his biggest ever solo stand-up show, Liminal, at Belfast's SSE Arena next February.
With local comics like Paddy Raff and Colin Geddis having now established Belfast's biggest venue as a viable option with sold-out dates there pre-Covid, it seems only natural that a veteran funnyman like Co Offaly-born Delamere should also be treading its boards once restrictions ease – although the comedian admits he may have his work cut out for him getting 'match-fit' beforehand.
"The process for a big show is normally that you go out to little clubs and build up the material that way," explains Delamere (42), whose pair of dates at Belfast's Ulster Hall at the start of this year have now been rescheduled for October.
"I'm hoping things are going to be open by April or May and I'll be back to trying stuff out. But the weird thing is, when people ask you to 'describe your comedy' and you go, 'ah, well, I kind of tell stories' – if you haven't done anything for a year, you don't have many stories to tell.
"There might be a lot of material about arguing with the wife about what should be deleted from the DVR and other household-based humour. But I think it's going to be a good release for everyone."
In fact, Delamere tells me he has a full run of dates booked for the end of this year which will be announced in due course, Covid permitting. By that stage, he will be well and truly gagging for it (pardon the pun): his last properly live shows were done south of the border just before Christmas last year, performed outdoors under strict social distancing measures to the smallest audiences he'd played to since the start of his stand-up career.
"There was a Department of Culture scheme to try and get people in the industry to go out and do things," explains the comedian, who viewers will also recognise from BBC Northern Ireland's Brexit-themed sitcom, Soft Border Patrol.
"We were allowed to do gigs for audiences of 15 people. I did a couple of those and it was great craic – but it was bizarre. Like, if a fella stood up in a rugby dressing room and made a speech about how they were gonna win, he was allowed to talk to more people than I was.
"The last gig I'd done before that was at Cork Opera House, and there I was performing for 15 people in a beer garden. And yet we were all extraordinarily happy to be there just because it was something different to do."
Delamere adds: "Hopefully, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel now. And I think once everyone has their vaccines and they are told it's safe again, they will flock back to live events.
"Hopefully the Republic's and the UK's vaccine programmes start to merge in terms of their efficacy because it could be very strange to have a situation where one side of the border is open and the other isn't."
As a regular on BBC NI's long-running topical panel show The Blame Game, which resumed recording under Covid-safe restrictions last year involving a live audience watching via Zoom, Delamere got another taste of how comedy can provide a tonic for troubled times alongside his fellow comedians and Blame Game chums Tim McGarry, Jake O'Kane and Colin Murphy.
"When we started doing them, we were trying to figure out how we could joke about something as serious as the pandemic – and would people want to hear it?" he recalls.
"Thankfully, we found that there was definitely an appetite for it, especially for people watching at home who were in need of some light relief from all that was going on."
Of course, it's not just the audience for comedy in pandemic times who benefit from its cathartic aspects: comedians are only human too (well, most of them), so stand-up and panel shows might be a bit like group therapy for everyone who's been climbing the walls for the past year.
When asked if he's managed to enjoy lockdown or if cabin fever has now set in, Delamere is refreshingly honest.
"Er, it's been a little bit from 'column A' and a little bit from 'column B'," he laughs.
"You go through different phases, I think. To be honest, at the start of lockdown, for the first while it wasn't too bad. It was more like an enforced break for me, as I'd been touring every single year round the usual circuit for 12, 13, 14 years.
"We sometimes foster dogs for a couple of weeks at a time, but we ended up looking after one of them, Mick, for five or six months [during lockdown]. That was extraordinary, because Mick didn't care about whether there was a lockdown going on: you still had to get out of the house X amount of times a day to provide his exercise, so that brought us a degree of normality and a good bit of balance.
"But then, after kind of October/November, it really began to drag. So I was delighted to do The Blame Game last time and we're doing it again in two or three weeks. It's just great to see my mates and to go and do something that's out of the house, you know?"
On the subject of The Blame Game, Irish News columnist, Belfast comedian extraordinaire and long-time Blame Game co-host Jake O'Kane recently announced that the upcoming series of the BBC hit will be his last after 16 years with the show.
"I'm definitely going to miss him and I wish him the best of luck in the world, just as he wished us all the best of luck in his Irish News column," says Delamere, who offered no clues as to who might be in the running to fill O'Kane's seat on the show.
"After working with somebody for so long, it will be a different vibe for the next person in – but such is life."
As for that SSE date looming in February, it seems the funnyman can't wait for the challenge of taking on a huge crowd in Belfast.
"I've done gigs in big 10,000-seater arenas before when I've been opening up for people or part of mixed bills, but I've never done anything like the SSE on my own before," he enthuses.
"So yeah, I'm really looking forward to it. From what I can remember of playing big places, the mechanics of it are just different than playing even a 1,000 seater, so it's going to force a slightly different kind of performance, which I'm really looking forward to.
"I like to try and impose structure on a job that's largely unstructured, so it's a focus for me between now and February next year. Part of it is because I just want to force myself to do it. By picking something big to aim for, it kind of gives you the impetus to actually make it happen.
"Plus, if you're not trying new things, you're not developing, you know?"
:: Neil Delamere, Liminal, Saturday February 26 2022, SSE Arena, Belfast. Tickets priced £22.50 on sale now via SSEarenabelfast.com
