Irish comedian Neil Delamere begins his energetic show with a round of audience participation that foreshadows the whirlwind pace of the remaining hour. He feeds off the crowd, using them as inspiration for gags – a woman with a distinctive laugh, a Danish research scientist and two teenagers in the front row being the most notable examples.
However, Delamere doesn’t solely rely on the audience for inspiration as he has enough material from his central narrative of trying to buy a watch for his elderly father’s birthday at an airport within a set budget. This thread provides Delamere ample opportunity to go off on tangents that display his considerable comedic skills. These include teaching his millennial niece how to drive, the absurdity of the different makes of watches on sale (which detours into a cow giving birth…don’t ask) and an exceptionally farcical tale about his car getting stuck whilst driving on the beach.
This last story contains enough comedic characters and situations for a sitcom episode, helped by Delamere’s animated retelling of the event, which provides the right amount of colourful detail to intrigue the audience without getting too sidetracked. Delamere himself is a ball of energy, firing on all cylinders as he flits from one thread to another, never losing momentum or the audience’s attention and he frequently goes back to his previously targeted audience members as a callback.
As if that wasn’t enough, he also makes good use of video projection for his climax to the epic watch story, which ended in… well, that would be giving the game away, wouldn’t it? However, it’s the kind of classic comic conclusion that’s an ideal way to finish off an entertaining hour that doesn’t miss an opportunity for a gag.