Kevin, who runs Dingle Oceanworld, was brought out during a segment of the show where each of the stars on one team – in this case, Gary Wilmot, David Mitchell and Meera Syal – each claimed to have a connection to Kevin. The other team, comprising Martine McCutcheon, Lee Mack, and Henning Wehn, then had to guess which person’s story about knowing Kevin was the truth.
Gary Wilmot claimed to have met Kevin while Kevin was stuck in a rubbish bin, while David Mitchell claimed that the pair met when they both came out to measure the same pot hole in the road. Meera, meanwhile, said that Kevin brought her swimming with a very friendly dolphin while on holiday in Kerry years ago.
Spoiler alert – you can probably guess which story ended up being true!
Speaking to The Kerryman about his quite out-of-the-blue appearance on the show on Friday, Kevin revealed the backstory behind it all.
“It was about 40-something years ago, back in the 80’s, when Fungie had just arrived in the harbour, and I was down swimming with him one morning near the lighthouse. I was there with my boat, and there were two people there, and they came up to me,” he said.
“They asked me if that was a wild dolphin that I was swimming with, and I told them that it was. I told them that I play with him and swim with him, and then she [Meera] asked me if there would be any chance that she could go in and swim with him?
Dingle’s Kevin Flannery (right) pictured appearing on last Friday night’s brand new episode of the hit BBC show ‘Would I Lie To You’.
“I gave her a loan of my spare wetsuit, and she came on board, and we toured around the place. Sure enough, Fungie started jumping and leaping and playing with her, and she reached out and touched him. She [Meera] was fabulous, and she loved the whole experience,” he continued.
After this, Kevin said that he said his goodbyes to the duo and thought no more of the encounter for the next 40-odd years.
Fast forward to June of last year, though, when Kevin received a call from the Would I Lie to You? team at the BBC, asking him to come on the show.
“They [the BBC] asked if I knew Meera and I actually said I didn’t at first!” he laughed, adding, “I’ve met so many over the years. After this, they flew me from Kerry to Luton and brought me out to Pinewood Studios.”
Before the filming, Kevin said that he wasn’t allowed to mix with anybody and was put in the green room by himself and was kept under wraps.
Filming, he said, took over two hours, way longer than the few minutes in which he appears on screen in the actual episode, all in front of an audience of around 800 people.
“It was a brilliant experience, it really was. I was delighted to meet Meera again. We had a great chat afterwards,” he said.
“She said the swim that day changed her life. She was telling me that she was a bit down after doing a play in London, and she had this encounter with the dolphin, and she said that it was so magical and wonderful that it changed her life. She said it was almost spiritual,” he continued, adding, “Meera said she’ll come over in the summer to see me again.”
Actress and comedian Meera Syal gave Dingle’s Kevin Flannery a huge hug after the two were reunited on Friday night’s episode of Would I Lie To You?
Amazingly, Kevin said that meeting famous faces such as Lee Mack and David Mitchell in the green room afterwards was not the biggest highlight of the experience. Instead, he said that he couldn’t get over how many people behind the scenes of the show had strong connections to Kerry!
“The most fascinating thing about the whole experience, though, was back in the green room after the show. Would you believe that I got very little chance to talk to the stars – David Mitchell and Lee Mack and the rest – because wasn’t there a Kerry connection everywhere I looked!” he said.
“There was one fella there who was a floor manager there, I think, and he was telling me that his dad was from Waterville, and I think it was the head of the production team, they were telling me that they were reared in Ballybunion and that his people were from Brosna,” he continued.
“So, by the time I got through all the Kerry people that were working there, there was very little time to chat to the stars,” he laughed.
On top of all this, Kevin said that the woman who did his makeup on the show was in Inch two weeks after filming and came back to Dingle to meet him, where he gave her a tour of the aquarium.
Now, as to whether Kevin is considering a career in TV after his experience, he jokingly said “move over Jessie Buckley!” before adding with a laugh that he didn’t think it would be for him!
Watch Kevin’s appearance on the show below – he appears from 12.30 onwards.