The Scotsman 5 Star Review, Edinburgh 2009

THE couple next to me had come to the Fringe hoping to see Rhod Gilbert, couldn't get a ticket, so took a punt on Neil Delamere. Given their reaction to this show, next year Gilbert moves to option status.

They laughed like a hyena's drains.

Delamere doesn't do props, he doesn't bring dancers – he just brings a proper set and his engaging presence. For this is a fella who truly loves life. Whether he's telling us about popping his cherry while being gobbled up by a sofa, or a hot air balloon flight meant to cure his fear of heights, Delamere knows how to selI a story.

It's too easy to invoke the Blarney Stone here; yes, Delamere is Irish but I suspect he'd be as brilliant wherever he hailed from. The cultural references would be different but the guiding intelligence would be the same. He'd still see not only the funny side of life, but be able to make the less obviously amusing hilarious.

Simply put, Delamere is a master. His likeability draws us in and we're soon hanging on his every word and gesture. And refreshingly, there's no cruelty in his observational comedy. When he mentions that a woman was 20 stone, it's matter-of-fact, pertinent to the story. When he makes a joke about something a punter has told him, they're in on the laugh.

Best of all, Delamere is not one of those comics to bring a half hour's material to an hour-long slot and hope the audience will fill the rest of the time. The man has gags to spare. When he has spent a couple of minutes chatting to an audience member you can count on Delamere to crank up his delivery to make sure he still gets everything in. This isn't a show where you leave feeling short-changed.

The Fringe loves themes. If a show isn't about training shoes or dead pets, it's nowheresville. Delamere has a theme – life's bookmarks, the rites of passage. Hence the 'losing virginity' story, hitting 30 and so on. That's a bit of a macguffin. What he really has is a huge fund of weird things that have happened to him which he's cleverly pared down into a themed show. Don't ponder the bookmark business, just come along for one of the funniest hours you'll have this year.

http://www.edinburgh-festivals.com/viewreview.aspx?id=910

one4review.com 5 Star Review, Edinburgh 2009

It was nearly two years ago that I first became aware of Neil Delamere when I saw him on a best of Irish at The Stand Comedy Club and although it was too late to review him that year I made appoint to do so ever since and have certainly not been disappointed with his show in any shape.

Delamere obviously has a good show under his belt, but to me he is at his very best when riffing with the audience and boy did the comedy gods smile on him the night I saw him, a very young baby called Jasper, a theatre student called Rupert, a banker, an events management lecturer, a reviewer, not me fortunately, and the Man from Del Monte and that was only a section of the front row. Talk about comedy gold, and Neil obviously made the absolute most of this .

His show Bookmarks bullets points significant landmarks in his life, and of course this comedy maestro has a fund of hilarious stuff to deliver on each event.

He is playing the intimate Wildman room at Assembly, which is a great space and seems ideal for him to play, however, economic forces may force him into a bigger venue, given the demand for his tickets and I hope that his obvious audience rapport would not be lost if and when this happens.

I certainly hope not, the man is too good, so take my advice grab for a ticket with both hands and don’t give it up for love or money.

http://www.one4review.com/Comedy_/comedy2009/neil_delamere_.htm

The List Magazine 4 Star Review, Edinburgh 2009

Breathless Irish comedian Delamere flits about the stage like a genial dervish, his quick-fire delivery and razor-sharp mind taking no prisoners. Quickly bu ilding a supreme rapport with his audience, his masterful control allows him to stray a little further than his charming demeanour suggests. Equally hilarious on and off his script, this is a hugely engaging hour.

Three Weeks Newspaper, 5 Star Review, Edinburgh 2009

Wow. This made my face hurt with laughter. Consider what the texture of a testicle should be before you go in; my goodness it's embarrassing if you don't know.

The Bookmarks title was essentially arbitrary but who cares? This was comedy at its finest and most intelligent, carefully crafted for the audience listening (and melting).

According to Neil this was the 'weirdest start to a show ever' but it didn't faze him and it didn't stop the audience from laughing throughout. Sex,Ireland, Thailand, these bookmarks are all glossed over in this hour of amusement.

Though the subjects don't seem all that new they were given a fresh perspective and I was gratefully surprised. Go and see comedy at its best

The Herald, 5 Star Review Edinburgh 2009

Gifted of gab and with firmly controlled flights of fancy, Neil Delamere is ready to climb the heights scaled by his compatriots Ed and Jason Byrne. That is the next bookmark in his life taken care of.

The loose device for this new show is to look back over the major personal events thus far. In other words, the autobiographical stuff of which much comedy is made.

With a hefty contingent from Northern Ireland howling the place down, the boy from the south was having a field day, and did not shrink from back referencing “The Troubles” as it suited his comic train of thought.

He is extremely adept at extracting the humour out of relationships in general, and sex in particular.

The tale of losing his virginity, almost literally, on a sofa bed is grab your guts funny, from trying to live the lyrics of Lou Reed’s song Perfect Day to the car alarm that plays the chimes of an ice cream van.

Delamere uses his crowd to bounce off like a wrestler working the ropes, coming back to pin yet another wry punchline to the floor.He may look unassuming and nondescript, but this is one mean, lean, comedy killing machine.

The Scotsman, Edinburgh 08

BIG in Ireland, Neil Delamere looks set to follow suit here. There's no obvious hook to his act – he's not a one-eyed comic, or a Tourette's sufferer; he doesn't appear in his poster with a farm animal or clad in a burka. He's a storyteller, that's all. But when the stories are this funny, that's enough. Whether working through his set or bouncing off the audience (a nice lady whose holistic career links brains to bum proved a gift), Delamere is a banter bomb, primed to make you explode with laughter. It's a cliché that Irish folk have the gift of the gab, but it's definitely true in this case – Delamere is, in the nicest possible sense, a gobshite. His mind goes at a million miles a minute, but his mouth filters things down to manageable speed. You're bound to miss the odd laugh while giggling at the previous line, but you easily get your money's worth, as Delamere talks about his sorties around the world – from the problems of pleasing a too-tall lady in Iceland to the joys of a biplane ride with a madman over New Zealand. And his account of failing to delight the head of a major Irish airline at a corporate event had everyone in fits of laughter. According to the Fringe programme, Delamere has "a fantastic show whose theme's so subtle as to be virtually undetectable". Well, said theme may be travel, or this may be an Emperor's New Clothes deal – convince yourself you've found the link and feel wonderfully smug. I suspect the theme was simply "bloody funny".

one4review.com, Edinburgh 08

I don’t know what it is about Ireland but it seems that there must be something in the water that helps in producing great comedians. There hardly seems to be a year that goes by that at least other one comes to my attention and these guys just rock. It was right towards the end of last years Fringe that I first encounter Neil Delamere on a Best of Irish gig at the Stand Comedy Club and noted his name for further investigation which I finally got to do yesterday. Playing to a packed Wildman room at the Assembly Rooms the guy was electric. His initial audience banter elicited a number of suitable victims, although I use the term loosely as he is not nasty, just having a craick. As with many of his peers Neil occasionally gets sidetracked from a story, but always gets back to it eventually. Stories of his travels to Sweden, Iceland and New Zealand have scope for his own take on what happened to him and boy does this guy do things. As good as all these stories are, for me the top one is the incident that led to him being banned from Ryan Air, but you will just have to try and get a ticket to find the story’s end. Delamere is a star performer. It won’t be long in my opinion before he is rivalling the existing top names for the biggest spaces and I predict there will still be difficulty in getting a ticket.

Chortle.co.uk Montreal 08

If you were looking for a theme to unite most of the Irish comedians on this showcase, it would have to be their sexually inadequacy. Three of the four acts spoke frankly of their failings in the bedroom, and given that no one – with the possible exception of the Welsh – does self-deprecation like the Irish, it made for some ludicrously entertaining anecdotes. Compere Neil Delamere had the best of them, with his hilarious tale of humiliation at the hands of a statuesque Icelandic beauty. His unexpected delight at talking her into bed turned to brilliant farce, as the daunting practicalities of the situation become slowly apparent. It’s a brilliant routine, like something from the best Farrelly Brothers movie, building slowly but methodically to its preposterously embarrassing climax; the comedy of the situation heightened by the contrast between his bumbling amiability and her clinical Nordic approach. Delamere’s long had the effortless geniality that makes him the perfect host. His stories – of which he is almost always the butt – might start modestly, but they are constructed with the precision of a structural engineer, so a tale about diving with sharks that starts out as a pedestrian mockery of the ridiculous advice given in case of attack builds on those solid foundations into another impressive side-splitter.

Chortle.co.uk Montreal 06

Neil Delamare is a comic hitting his form, based on the impressive routine here tonight. Previously a nice-guy everyman, heís found an appealing spikiness to his act, with flashes of passion piercing the middle-class respectability. His material, too, comes from genuinely unexpected directions, with a fertile mind making surprising, and very funny, connections to keep you on your toes.

Irish Times, Kilkenny Festival 07

No tv camera could accurately measure the lightening speed of Delamere's wit.

Three Weeks Magazine, Best of Irish show Edinburgh 07

The talent crescendo-ed as the night progressed, finishing on a high with Neil Delamere. His off-the-cuff humor was hilarious and sharp, proving him to be a genuinely funny guy

The List Magazine, Edinburgh 07

Viking history
Irish comedian Delamere treats the Fringe to a history lesson on the Vikings and although you’re in danger of learning something, you’ll be relieved to know that it’s mostly a ruse to shoehorn in the gags. All well-written and pleasingly delivered by Delamere’s ever-affable demeanour; the highlight of the show is the finale where he plays us his butchered audio guide half-inched from a museum.

Three Weeks Magazine, Edinburgh 07

Neil Delamere: The Viking Show
More accurately a comical PowerPoint presentation about the Vikings, brought to you by a very funny Irish comedian. Delamere was surprisingly accomplished at the mandatory "so, where you all from" part of the show, and, fortunately, the vast majority were from Ireland giving him a great deal to get stuck into. Delamere was lively and sharp and his material was far from run-of-the-mill observational commentary, transforming what were essentially mundane stories into jovial anecdotes. Even when the PowerPoint presentation packed up he was able to keep it going relentlessly, and the audience couldn't help but be carried along by the show's infinite mirth and enjoyment.

Montreal Gazette, 07

Neil Delamere was the MC and far more than simply warm up/pick on the audience - which he did with genuine charm and wattage - he proved he had his own A material... Delamere was the sharpest of the acts.. Give this man a set