Gary Delaney (I)

An interview with Gary Delaney

One-liner comedian Gary Delaney tends to write for the likes of 8 Out of 10 Cats, Jason Manford's Comedy Rocks and Russell Howard's Good News, but last Thursday he appeared on Dave's One Night Stand alongside Ardal O'Hanlon and Josie Long. "It was nice to be the guy in front of the camera, rather than the guy behind it writing the jokes", he tells Radio Teesdale's Peter Dixon.

Judging by the line-ups for the third series of this programme, I think it's safe to say that Dave are running low on suitable locations to film. The first episode featured Ardal O'Hanlon performing in Dublin, a city which the programme's already covered in the last series when Jason Byrne performed there. Later in the series, Stephen K Amos is performing in London, Jack Whitehall's location in the first series. And Reginald D Hunter is performing in Edinburgh, which, as far as I know, isn't where he lives currently. It's certainly not his hometown, although since that would mean filming in America you can excuse Dave for not going there...

In terms of the first edition of the series, O'Hanlon seemed to be performing well, but like many an occasion on this programme I was more impressed by the guests he had performing alongside him. This episode featured one-liner stand-up Gary Delaney (who, out of interest to northern comedy fans, is Sarah Millican's boyfriend) and Josie Long. I probably favoured Delaney's one-liners over Long's narrative, if I'm honest, but both demonstrated why they're two of the most sought after comedians in the country.

Ardal O'Hanlon is on good form as the headline act at Dublin's Olympia Theatre, his saucer-eyed wonder undercut by a surreal streak. Supporting him on this trip back to his local theatre are Gary Delaney (a one-liner machine in the same vein as Milton Jones and Tim Vine) and the whimsical Josie Long.

Of the two, Long is the more appealing performer, with her diatribe on The Sun's Page Three girls being particularly well executed. Delaney is perhaps someone more to admire than like - you can't help but be in awe of someone who remembers so many gags, although the fact that he finds his own material quite so amusing does start to grate.

The series where comedians return to their hometowns and perform a local gig is back. As a format, it's never really worked as intended because the comedians never reveal anything interesting about their formative years. O'Hanlon turns his set into a routine about accidentally killing the family dog and re-enacting a scene from The Godfather with his emotionally distant dad. What it does deliver is O'Hanlon's standup to an easy crowd as he performs at Dublin's Point, with fellow comics Gary Delaney and Josie Long filling out the bill.

While most of the comedy world is currently camping out in Edinburgh (Radio 4 is recording a number of shows up at the festival), Russell Kane's Whistle Stop Tour appeared at first to offer something different from seaside resorts across the UK.

The only problem was that there wasn't enough material about the location chosen (on this occasion Blackpool) to make the listening experience anything more than another night down the local comedy club. It was not that Kane and the other comics - Chris Ramsey, Gary Delaney, Justin Moorhouse and the particularly funny Rob Rouse - did not make an entertaining combination, but this was a dull, run-of-the-mill format. Despite Kane travelling on the Big One rollercoaster at the Pleasure Beach and hearing snippets about Punch and Judy and the resort's early history, the majority of the programme could have been recorded anywhere.
Surely to conjure up something of Blackpool's distinctive atmosphere would not have been difficult. A bit of effort, a stroll down the seafront and a chat with some of the tourists or performers working at the resort would have been preferable to the slightly patronising remarks from Kane such as, "I didn't know stuff like this existed!" What a missed opportunity.

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