Mike Delamont’s God is a Scottish Drag Queen series is a hit in Surrey – and elsewhere for that matter.
The “Second Coming” of his scripted comedy plays Surrey Arts Centre’s Main Stage next Friday night (Jan. 31), and it’s a sold-out show.
“We were sold out last time too, with the original production, but it was in the smaller venue at city hall, so it’s nice to move to the big theatre and sell out there too,” Delamont, a Victoria-area resident, told the Now-Leader.
“It sells out most of the time, which means people like it,” he continued. “The title tends to scare a few people away, and the title is by far the most blasphemous part of the show, but the show itself really isn’t. What I always tell people about the show is, God isn’t the punch line, God is the comedian. So by now there’s a fan base that gets it and knows what it’s about, and it’s nice that once people get in the door they know what’s going on, and they bring their friends.”
The show finds Delamont dressed in a “floral power suit” to share new rants, and reply to questions only God might be able to answer.
“When I wrote the first show I thought, ‘I think I’ve got all the answers people will want to know from God, that’s it, that’s done now,'” Delamont explained. “But it turns out I wasn’t even close, and people wanted to know everything else, so a sequel came very quickly and so did a third one, and a Christmas one too. So it’s this continuation of God looking at everything from Adam and Eve to Zeus, Disney movies and Pocahontas and why the platypus exists, turkeys, a whole range of stuff.”
• RELATED STORY, from 2017: ‘God is a Scottish Drag Queen’ comedy show playing Surrey has drawn flak elsewhere.
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For Delamont, the “God” series is among several of his diverse shows, including his one-man drama Mama’s Boy, based on a true story of a young man growing up with a mother who struggled with an addiction to alcohol.
Then there’s The War of 1812, about a young boy who doubts “the awesomeness of Canadian history until the ghost of Pierre Burton appears to him in a Birch Bark Time Canoe and takes him all the way back to The War of 1812,” according to a description at mikedelamont.com.
“Right now we’re in Burnaby doing Mama’s Boy, which I don’t get a chance to do very often so it’s nice to stretch that muscle,” Delamont said on Friday (Jan. 24). Then it’s on to Salt Spring with The War of 1812, which is four guys in a wacky show where we play probably 15 characters each, and it’s go, go, go. My wife got me to wear a Fitbit for the show once and in the hour and a half it’s a four-kilometre jog, so that’s what the show is for me – like going to the gym, and it’s a blast. And it’s one of the rare shows I do where you can bring your kids to.”
Delamont also does stand-up comedy, and on Saturday, Feb. 1 will bring his Hell Yeah: An Evening with the Devil to Maple Ridge’s ACT Arts Centre. “That’s the other side of the God coin, the next night after Surrey,” he said.
The “God” series is co-written by Delamont’s wife, Chantelle.
“What’s nice about them is they’re stand-alone shows,” Delamont insisted, “so if you didn’t see the first one you can just walk in the door and see it and you’ll be just fine. And if you’ve seen the first one, you can come in and it’s an entirely different show, nothing repeated.”
Every so often, he said people get upset with the God is a Scottish Drag Queen title.
“But very rarely it’s from people who’ve actually seen the show,” Delamont said. “So yeah, some people are horribly offended by the title but on the other end, we have preachers and pastors and nuns and people of the cloth who come to the show and have a really great time. I always tell people that if you have any kind of a religious background, like Sunday school or you grew going to church, there’s a whole secondary part to it that you’ll really enjoy. But it’s also fun for somebody who’s never opened the Bible, too.”
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