Jason Byrne

[faceless]

Rapid Fire - Comedian Jason Byrne
Sally Browne
December 25, 2010
couriermail.com.au

IRISH comedian Jason Byrne left audiences in stitches at the last Brisbane Comedy Festival. He returns next year to stitch them back up again.

WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST GIG AND HOW DID IT GO?
Gigged in my local pub when I was 21, had seen Billy Connolly talking about tits and bums, so I thought this was what you did. My mum was there, nuns, and local priests . . . what a disaster, people wouldn't talk to me for weeks, and my mum was frowned upon in the church.

WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR BEST AND WORST GIG?
Best gig ever was when the roof of a venue I was in started to fall in because of heavy rain and I did the rest of the gig outside under a canopy. And worst gig ever, I'd say the above or when I had to gig in Dubai and was going on about Jesus and religion a lot. Afterwards I had to be taken out of the venue with an escort; I think they wanted to kill me.

WHEN DID YOU DISCOVER YOU WERE FUNNY?
When I made my uncle Frank laugh. He hadn't laughed for years, and no matter how hard people tried he wouldn't laugh . . . so one day I was in his house, telling my cousins one of my stories and hey presto Frank laughed . . . and since I had performed a miracle, it was Jesus who sent me to the stage.

WHO DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GREW UP?
I wanted to be Tin Tin: he had a great life, he was rich, had no wife, just a dog that couldn't speak, but got drunk now and again, and he got to go to every country in the world, and he never died.

WHAT'S YOUR FAVOURITE ONE-LINER?
I suppose the Queen Mary is one of my favourite liners.

WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD?
To get to work in the chicken factory, where he thought he was going to be a manager, but they slit his neck instead, and put flavours in his bum.

WHY ARE THERE SO MANY COMEDIANS FROM IRELAND?
Because the British stole our entertainment when they were here, so we had to write our own shows, but always in hiding from the British, under a rock, and even now if you lift a rock you'll find a small theatre under it.

IF YOU WEREN'T A COMEDIAN WHAT WOULD YOU BE?
Dead or begging. I can't do anything else; I tried cooking, nearly killed them all, do it yourself, nearly killed them all, and then the army . . . killed them all.

HAVE YOU EVER HAD A JOKE STOLEN BY SOMEONE ELSE?
Yeah, I was in Dublin one day, put down my bag of jokes to get change for the bus, and then when I looked around my bag of jokes had been stolen . . . true story, they were props.

IS THERE ANY OTHER COMIC'S MATERIAL YOU WISH YOU'D WRITTEN?
Fawlty Towers, all Monty Python, and all the greats, and Billy Connolly and, and, and . . .

WHAT IS YOUR SECRET GUILTY PLEASURE?
Sitting in a well, at the end of my garden, eating marshmallows, naked.

Jason Byrne performs at the Powerhouse from March 17 to 20 as part of the Brisbane Comedy Festival, which runs from March 1 to 27.