Feeling the Byrne

He is an Irish comedy godhead who gets lost in his own brain and plays up like a schoolboy in a teacher free class. Jason Byrne tells Ronan Maher about life in his brain

The new show is ‘Cirque Du Byrne’. Where did you get the idea for the title?

Because it’s not just stand-up on its own and there’s loads of other sh*t happening in it all the time, like people getting up on stage and doing stuff with me. I thought the gig is more of an event than just a stand-up show. Cirque du Soleil is a show with all sorts of mad sh*t happening, so I just thought I’ll have my own Cirque du Soleil.

What can audiences expect at the show?

I use the audience to more or less drive the show, so depending on who’s there that’s the angle we all head towards. So, if they’re good craic and having a laugh, off we go to madland and, if they’re a bit more reserved then we just pull it back a bit.

How has the tour been going so far? When did it start?

We were doing it for half of the year last year, but I’m always changing it and putting new stuff in. I just did 48 dates of a British tour. Around 40,000 went to see it. I think two didn’t like it!

You seem to have a sort of confrontational yet warmly friendly relationship with your audience. Are you trying to test their boundaries?

No, I think that when I leave my gigs, I do wish I was braver, like tying someone’s testicles to a door and banging it. No, what I do is so mild compared to what other comics would attempt. Mine is just play-acting. What I always say is it’s like the teacher is just out of the room and we can all do what we want and I’m the messer up the front and all the kids want to join in. If you consider getting three lads up on stage to hold plates while playing their testicles with xylophone sticks pushing their boundaries, I don’t think that’s the right phrase. That’s literally acting the bollocks.

Your style of delivery is a kind of stream of consciousness. Did that develop over time or is that how you started out?

That developed over time. It takes absolutely years to learn how to do that and you can’t study it. It’s like exercising your brain at anything. If you’re good at maths and you go away from it, it takes a while to remember how to do it.

So what is it actually like inside your head?

My brain tends to drift when I can’t remember what’s coming up next, so it goes into this mode where I don’t know where it’s going and I have to follow it as opposed to me driving it. It’s like I’m reading sh*t. I can see it all in front of me waiting to happen and while I’m talking my brain is building the next bit.

Is it chaotic?

Sh*t can come into my head out of nowhere. I use the audience a lot of the time to trigger that. If a room, which can happen, is not exciting, it will barely trigger it…

Jason Byrne takes to the stage at the Seapoint Leisure Centre in Salthill on Saturday 4 February at 8pm. Tickets cost €20 and are selling out fast.