Comedy turn in Ulster city disheartened (8)
I believe the answer is:
drollery
'comedy' is the definition.
(I know that clowning can be written as drollery)
'turn in ulster city disheartened' is the wordplay.
'turn' becomes 'roller' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'ulster city' becomes 'derry' (city in Ulster).
'disheartened' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters).
'derry' with its centre taken out is 'dy'.
'roller' going into 'dy' is 'DROLLERY'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for drollery that I've seen before include "Comical quality" , "Jesting" , "jokes" , "display of humour" , "Jest; buffoonery" .)