Simon Delaney: ‘I’m in the chair Gay Byrne sat in. That isn’t lost on me’
The actor, writer and presenter on occupying Gaybo’s old Sunday afternoon slot at Lyric FM and prioritising variety in his career
Building a tribe: Simon Delaney at Lyric FM
As with the history of Irish broadcasting in general, so with the career of Simon Delaney: the totemic figure of Gay Byrne casts a long shadow. Lately in situ as host of the eponymous Sunday Afternoon with… on Lyric FM, some of his earliest memories are being in the kitchen with his mother, “the radio on, listening to Gaybo”.
Delaney’s first TV appearance was in 2001, a contestant on the Gay-hosted Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. Byrne then became a sterling supporter of Simon’s early stage work. And now, the versatile Delaney — actor, writer, presenter and a bit of a national treasure — occupies the same slot on Lyric filled by Sunday with Gay Byrne from 2010-16.
“It’s funny the way life works,” he says. “It’s come full-circle and I’m sitting in the chair Gay sat in; that fact isn’t lost on me. It means a lot to me, having his slot on Lyric. I was very influenced by Gay, growing up, in my career. The first time I met him was on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? — where I ended up losing £16,000!
“About six months later, I’d started doing a lot of theatre. Gay would come to every show I was in and drop me a card. The last one he saw was the world premiere of The Snapper at The Gate in 2018. He wrote saying he’d loved the show and my performance, and then, ‘Isn’t it a good job you lost the few bob on Millionaire all those years ago, otherwise you mightn’t have got into acting.’ I have that card framed at home!”
Delaney has “always been fascinated with radio”. He was a devotee of Byrne’s Lyric show too: “I loved the music he played, all that great jazz. And that’s all feeding into the show I’m doing now.”
His parents and grandparents, like most of that generation, loved the legendary broadcaster. In the mid-noughties RTÉ aired a Millionaire anniversary show, for the 100th episode; Simon agreed to take part, as a past contestant, if he could bring his grandparents (Granddad had been his “phone-a-friend” on the original broadcast).
“They’re both gone now, God bless them,” he says. “But I brought them to RTÉ, on to the set of Millionaire.
“I’ve a photo of the two of them sitting in the chairs, myself and Gay standing behind them, and I treasure it. For them, meeting Gay was like meeting the Pope.”
Sunday Afternoon with… debuted on March 3, replacing Seán Rocks in the Lyric schedule. Delaney had previously “dipped my toes” in radio, standing in a few years ago for Ryan Tubridy on 2FM and George Hook on Newstalk. Closer to home, he covered for Marty Whelan on Lyric’s weekday morning show last year.
“I’ve always been a big fan of Lyric,” he says. “Ian McGlynn, who’s a brilliant producer at Lyric, asked me about doing my own show, I said I’d love it, and we devised what kind of music we’d play.
“I love chatting, I’m happy with a mic in front of me, although covering for Marty was nerve-wracking initially. His show is such an institution, his listeners are so loyal. I’m trying to do that now on Sundays, build a tribe of my own — and we’re getting there. You notice the same people texting in, saying the music is great. It’s heartwarming.”
Sunday Afternoon with… is, as you’d expect, a cheerful and chilled-out three-hour journey through a wide range of music: everything from orchestral, operatic and jazz to showtunes, crooners, Big Band and screen classics.
“Ian will do up a running order, based on a kind of ‘Lyric template’, and I’ll suggest a few changes,” Delaney says. “We jig around the running order as it comes closer to airing, then on the show itself, it’s fairly interactive. We’ve been getting a phenomenal response by text and email, people requesting songs. It’s a moveable feast to some extent. Ian is a brilliant producer, I can’t praise him highly enough.”
There’s an art, he agrees, to putting together a three-hour soundtrack to the afternoon. You don’t want three vocal tracks back-to-back, so they’ll be split with an instrumental. And you don’t want the main man off-air too long, for example, by playing a few long classical pieces in a row. “It’s a real mix — and another nod to when Gay had that slot.”
The station celebrates its 25th birthday on May 1, something Simon describes as “incredible. Where has the time gone? Lyric has been a brilliant part of the broadcasting landscape. Long may it last, it’s a great station.”
He’s probably most famous as an actor. He’d done a lot of amateur theatre, plays and pantos in his youth; after Bachelor’s Walk (the seminal TV drama which made him a household name) went supernova in 2001, film and television work increased.
Over the last 25 years, Delaney has put in a raft of good performances: Paths to Freedom, Disco Pigs, Intermission, The Good Wife, Moone Boy, The Conjuring, Coronation Street, the animated show Roy and more — not forgetting that memorable turn as grumpy solicitor Michael in Bachelor’s Walk.
He has “a few projects” lined up for later this year — details under wraps for now — and from early March was filming in Glasgow for five weeks, a Sky drama about the 1988 Lockerbie disaster.
He also does theatre “every 18 months or two years”, more for love of the craft than the money: “You couldn’t survive doing theatre in Ireland. My cousin Niall Buggy — a great actor, two-time Olivier Award winner — gave me good advice: only do a play if you like the part, the cast, the director. So I did The Price last year because it was written by Arthur Miller, directed by Conleth Hill, great cast, and I had a ball.”
Delaney co-hosted Ireland AM on Virgin Media from 2015–22. Does he miss breakfast television? “I don’t miss getting up at five in the morning! But I do miss the people I worked with, we were great friends; not just presenters but crew, producers, contributors over the years. I was very glad of that job, especially during Covid when there was nothing happening in live entertainment. And the variety… You could be interviewing Michael Parkinson or Jeffrey Archer, then a fella cooking a chicken pie, then you’re out the back cycling… I loved it.”
Life is busy for Simon Delaney — he was also nominated for best supporting actor for the TV drama The Woman in the Wall at the Iftas last week (missing out to Richard Dormer for Blue Lights) — and he wouldn’t have it any other way. As well as radio and acting, a debut crime novel, Watching Over You, hits shops in August.
“I enjoy working, doing a few things at once. I don’t like being bored or idle. I think I got that ethic from my father, a printer by day and playing in showbands by night. I get to film scenes with Colin Firth during the week, then sit in a radio studio on Sunday, playing Benny Goodman: that’s not a bad way to spend your time.”
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