Comedian Rob Delaney is many things: standup, Twitter filth luminary with over one million followers, best-selling author, and purveyor of beefy metaphors. You can now add successful sitcom cocreator, writer, and star to that list. Last year Delaney moved over to the UK to create Catastrophe with British comedian Sharon Horgan. The show follows Delaney and Horgan as a pair of transcontinental strangers who get thrown together when their brief fling results in a pregnancy. Channel 4 has picked up Catastrophe for a second season, and sometime this spring the show will be available stateside via Amazon Prime. In the meantime, Delaney has returned to the U.S. and the standup stage for his bluntly titled Meat tour. He makes a stop at the Neptune Theatre this Thursday, February 26 at 8pm.

To preview his return visit, we chatted with Delaney about the Twitter origins of Catastrophe, moving across the pond, and his current favorite TV shows.

How does it feel—after uprooting your life in Los Angeles to move overseas—that Catastrophe has turned out to be such a success?

Just really wonderful. It’s been hard to move 5,800 miles or whatever we moved because I have kids and a wife, but it’s been rewarding. I’m in shock people have responded to this show in the way that they have. I just feel incredibly lucky.

How did you and Sharon initially connect?

I was a fan of her amazing TV shows that she’d written and starred in. I saw that she followed me on Twitter, so I wrote her a message in 2010 or something. And we became friendly and just were interested in a lot of the same things.

What’s the best part of the collaborative process that exists between you and Sharon?

We drive each other to think of the most honest, funny things we can. We don’t settle for stuff. We let each other know if we think something isn’t really working. It’s just more fun. I learn a lot. Especially after having written a book, which is such a lonely slog, writing with a partner who’s also a fun, interesting person is a pleasure. 

There’s long been a line of thought that American and British comedy sensibilities are starkly different. Since you’ve been living over there, do you find that to be the case or is that sort of an outdated notion?

I don’t think it so much anymore because there’s such cross-pollination. Americans watch British shows. British people watch American shows. I think maybe 20 years ago it would have been more pronounced, but frankly, you have to find the highest common denominator. You have to be funny in both places. Maybe you have to be a little funnier, but you don’t have to be a different kind of funny. You just can’t cheat; there’s nowhere to hide.

With all the time the show requires, do you feel like you’ve been able to keep up your standup chops or is it something you’re working your way back into?

If I had just been acting, I might have been able to do standup, but since Sharon Horgan and I wrote it and produced it too, there was a good two months where I couldn’t do standup. And that’s never happened before. When I had that thought, “Oh, I haven’t done standup in two months,” that sucked. But I barely had that thought because we were so busy. So you kinda can’t do it all.

Do you plan on setting up residence in England permanently or do you think you’ll move back once Catastrophe finishes its run?

I don’t know… I don’t know. We’re going to make a second season, and then we’ll see. I like it there a lot, but I like Los Angeles too.

Last time I interviewed you, we talked about some of your pop culture obsessions. What currently constitutes your pop cultural intake?

A couple of TV shows: Happy Valley and Transparent. Those have been my favorite things on TV; really brilliant and well-crafted TV. Also the Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight trilogy by Richard Linklater. Those have rocked me in their honest exploration of how people operate. Happy Valley has some pretty exciting action—murder and kidnapping—but those aren’t even the most interesting parts. It’s the humanity of the people sort of surrounding that stuff. Transparent and the Before Midnight; it’s just really, really human. That’s my favorite stuff.

Considering your following, do you feel pressure to keep up a steady Twitter pace even when things get busy with other projects?

No. Twitter is a tool. It’s fun to put jokes on it, but no I don’t feel any pressure if I ignore it for a few days. I don’t think anybody cares. 

Rob Delaney
Feb 26 at 8, Neptune Theatre, $25