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Cream Of Irish vs Britcom.Edy.
 An
Irishman, an Englishman and a Welshman walk into a bar. The
joke writes itself and the interview is away. In this case the
bar was the Earl of Aberdeen, where meeting Neil Delamere (Cream
Of Irish), Junior Simpson (Best Of The Edfest) and Rhod Gilbert
(Britcom.Edy) became like walking into an effusive Accents Anonymous
meeting but a hell of a lot funnier.
I had hurriedly waded through their publicity which left me
no wiser as to what makes them tick or indeed what questions
to ask. Luckily, they came to my rescue as I let them rifle
through each other's publicity sheets and biographies. Junior,
Neil and Rhod were like a well-oiled self-deprecating machine
bouncing lines off one another, gently ribbing each other and
their shows while maintaining the respect and regard that comedians
have for people who take up the challenge.
Junior has been described as the new Lenny Henry, "a comparison that is lazy as the only thing we have in common is our shading and profession. Style, subjects, delivery all totally different but perhaps skin tone is more important." Junior is also incapable of putting the toilet seat down or taking the rubbish out; his wife is flying over to sort this problem out once and for all.
 Rhod
(the deadpan insomniac of the interview and proud owner of a
five-minute recording of the drills that wake him every morning
at 7am) believes that Neil's girlfriend wrote the line that
Neil "charmed the pants off the entire audience", as she comprised
the entire audience.
Neil (the erudite Professor of comedy, holder of an angry streak a mile wide and old style straight man of the interview) believes that Rhod is much more likely to work in a lighthouse than "illuminate the night sky of comedy way into the distant future." He also is the producer of Junior's upcoming DVD, "Junior Simpson's Greatest Gag". All believe that their publicity blurbs may indeed contain some poetic licence that in turn could be used by promoters to further their goals.
All their shows have universally been described as original, creative and wickedly funny. In turn self-diagnosis of shows proved different. "All of us are show-stoppers but only in that people walk out. No really, we're all unbelievably talented, natural performers, hilarious, slick and intelligent."
Gilbert describes his part in britcom.edy as; "I'm basically the shit in the sandwich. I'm the glorified intermission; if you need a beer I'm the time to go. The audience can expect to be pretty pleased that they live in Australia and not the UK. I mean, in our show we tick all the politically correct boxes; we've got a black man, an Englishman, a bisexual and a Welshman and the first three are just Stephen Amos."
Delamere's show transforms from "fantastic, original and talented" to " a massive disappointment that will teach people to question the phrase cream of the Irish. David and Karl are brilliant though." Junior reiterated that we can expect blind racism, a lot of talking about shit, a step by step guide to the international language and a few questions about what he should he do while being in Adelaide. Junior has set up an e-mail address (juniorinoz@hotmail.com) that enable people to contact him regarding where to go, "with bugger off and go home proving very popular I bet" interjects Rhod, and people to meet. Both Rhod and Neil see this as a thinly veiled attempt to meet women while giving irate punters an ideal opportunity to heckle them some more.
"The audiences have been fantastic to us regardless of whether they've been small or large. They've all been up for it. Perhaps it is due to the smaller number of shows than Edinburgh so you don't have to fight as hard for audience and can concentrate upon the performance. Perhaps it is due to Adelaide having a more laid back approach than Edinburgh."
Adelaide and Australia have proved popular with the lads. "The food, the weather, the girls, the festival, the beaches, the audiences. We all pinch ourselves to make sure that this is real." Neil related a story, "I rang my friend who's a night porter in Dublin from the beach, held the phone out and said 'do you hear that; that's the sound of the sea, his response was to hang up after saying "fuck off its raining". Between them they've been to the Migration Museum, Tandanya, Glenelg, the 24-hour laundrymat/Internet Cafˇ, and the Botanic Gardens when "we've called in sick" but are a bit reticent to go bush too much. As Junior explains, "you've got that wildlife that can get bus passes to travel into the city to kill stray tourists while big arse snakes come up and bite you on the arse."
Junior's not concerned about strangers, psychos or flowers however. He was upgraded into business class on the flight over, had some fruit salad, forgot about it, smuggled it into Australia and was fined $220 by Customs. Neil reckons that it is a small price to pay for destroying Australia's fruit and wine industries, one that the French and German employers of Junior will reimburse upon receipt of the receipt.
The joke that writes itself was finished: An Irishman, a Welshman and a black man walk into a bar and the black guy gets arrested except in an English bar where the Irishman gets arrested. In the Welsh bar we sing a song providing the rugby's not on.
I left with the final question from Junior ringing in my ears; "what do you call those round rubber orange balls with horns that you can bounce on?"
Darien O'Reilly
Photos from top of Junior Simpson Rhod Gilbert
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'Cream Of Irish' runs at 7.30pm each evening, 'BritCom...edy' at 9pm each evening, and Ed Byrne (not featured in this article) at 10.30pm at the Arts Theatre. All shows run until Sun 14 March.
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