Jason Byrnes ‘Comic Vision’

Citylife sits down with Jason Byrne about an hour after watching him get the better of two presenters on breakfast TV.

“You have to do that or people don’t think you’re very funny,” he explains to excuse his playful approach. The pressure to assault CityLife with one liners is, Jason says reassuringly, nowhere near as strong.

To be fair, Jason’s approach to interviews is one that mirrors the way he handles an audience. Mucking around with the crowd is as much a feature of his touring shows as his own stand up set – a feature that continues in new show, Special Eye, a tribute to his once lazy eye.

“I remember coming off stage once and a couple near the stage saying, ‘I think he just made all that up’,” he laughs.

“A lot of people think the whole two hours are spontaneous, but they’re not.There’s a lot of stories pre-written and in the first half I groom the audience by constantly feeding them with confusion so I can see who’d be good for interaction stuff.

“But when the audience makes me laugh, that’s my favourite thing to go with. I always push myself to make up stuff on the spot, that keeps me excited and keeps the audience on their toes; no matter what I ask my

audience they always come back with a funny answer.”

The stage remains his natural home, but Jason has gone one step closer to being a household name lately after his BBC commissioned sitcom Father Figure hit screens this summer.

He has been bitten by the acting bug; making it was “the best crack ever”, and although it struggled to enrapture the critics, it has been well enough received that he’s already talking to the station about a second series.

“When I was writing it, I didn’t have all the actors or a clue what the set looked like,” he says.

“The first series was a learning process. Now that I know how they all work, and it’s got this little mad team, we really want to go for a second series.

“It’s so hard to get a sitcom into people’s living rooms and get them used to it. A second series now would be so much easier to write – I’ve started working on plot lines and I don’t see why it wouldn’t happen.

“I’d never not do stand up, though,” he smiles. “That’s where I can write and say what I like. After doing the sitcom I went and did a live gig and I think I swore more than I ever have done in my life.”

Source – http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk