Even if fiddle music and Irish step-dancing aren’t your cuppa whisky, everyone loves a laugh, right? To that end, CelticFest Vancouver is bringing in famed Irish comedian Brendan Grace for a rare appearance on the West Coast.

The 61-year-old entertainer loves playing Newfoundland, or, as he calls it, “the 33rd county of Ireland.…It’s like a little part of the southeast corner of Ireland broke off centuries ago and floated across the Atlantic.” But he’s only visited Vancouver twice before.

He isn’t a household name in these parts—although you may have seen him in Moondance or on the Irish sitcom Father Ted—but everyone in his homeland knows him, whether he’s telling jokes, singing, or dressed up as a schoolboy.

“Forty years a comedian and an entertainer, and I’ve been on TV constantly,” he told the Straight by phone from County Mayo. “People know me no matter where I go. But it’s a nice ‘know’. I react to people like a duck reacts to water.”

For the past 20 years, though, Grace has lived in the U.S., where the duck is definitely on dry land. “I can walk down the beach in Florida in my bathing gear and I don’t get any wolf whistles,” he says. “It’s such a joy to be there and not be known, I have to say. It’s great. We have lots of friends and family visit us, and they’re quite amazed I can walk into a restaurant and nobody knows me.”

How he ended up there sounds sinister, the way he sets it up: “I entertained Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. while they were on tour in Ireland and they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse,” he says. “When you’re made an offer from Frank Sinatra, you don’t say ‘I couldn’t refuse’; you say ‘He made me an offer I daren’t refuse.’ ”

Sinatra’s famous association with the mob notwithstanding, this was all on the up and up. The offer was simply to come to America to work with their company. The cheekiness of youth was what endeared Grace to the legendary crooner.

“Sinatra had a tremendous good sense of humour, and he particularly liked me as an Irish comedian,” he says. “I got to say things to him that other people would have been kneecapped for saying.” Grace says Ol’ Blue Eyes used to introduce him to show biz royalty like Mel Tormé, Steve Lawrence, Eydie Gormé, and Roger Moore as “my man in Europe”. That relationship was a bit of a boost to Grace’s career, to say the least. “The influence of the Sinatra connection certainly opened all avenues and highways,” he says.
Grace’s gentle brand of comedy is a mixture of family-friendly storytelling, characterizations, and good old-fashioned street jokes tailored to his persona. It’s all in the delivery. “I’m a great believer that something that was funny 100 years ago can be funny today if you do it properly,” he says.

But Bottler is all his own, a beloved, mischievous innocent dressed in shorts, knee socks, and a cap. Grace had no idea the invention would last as long as it has. “It’s funny to see a 60-year-old schoolboy with a beard and short trousers.” Not only does the character work on-stage, it also served over the years as a way to tame his four now-grown children when they were younger. “I would threaten to pick them up on a Honda 50 outside the school dressed up as Bottler,” he says. “That kept them in line. I embarrassed the shit out of them.”

In a profession where the flavour of the month comes and goes, Grace’s career is a testament to his work ethic and humility. He describes comedy as being “like driving a semi with the handbrake on all the time—it’s a difficult business.” So he’s not one to take his career for granted.

“I never fail to be thankful to God that I’ve lasted for this long,” he says. “Even though it’s comedy, I take it seriously.”