Jason Byne: Cats Under Mats, Having Chats With Bats

Jason Byrne is one of the Fringe superstars who will sell out whichever expansive venue he chooses to grace with his show. Now in his sixth year at the Fringe, he quite rightly plays to capacity audiences in the huge Assembly Hall. While his show title is simply an amusing poster-filler rather than a theme, one wonders if he'd ever manage to stick to a theme in the first place.

Let's be clear about Byrne: he is a consummate master of improvisation and audience interaction. With no discernible effort, he picks five or six unsuspecting members of the crowd who then become a part of his elaborate set-up. After chatting to each of them in turn, gently teasing out their flaws and caricaturing them into oblivion, he weaves their stories into a sketch show that leaves the audience crying tears of laughter. This wildly unplanned section of his show not only outlasts his written material, it also upstages it significantly. Rarely out-and-out offensive but always edgy, Byrne's charisma and quick-thinking hold the audience in his palm as he tosses them in multiple directions of vaguely surreal comedy.

While Byrne's material is far from revolutionary with very little depth to most of his topics, it is refreshingly human and doesn't feel at all contrived. His observations on his family life are warm and genuine while maintaining the kind of weirdness that he seems to thrive on. If you can get hold of a ticket, and don't mind being scrutinised in front of a ridiculously huge audience, you will not be disappointed by the flame-haired Dubliner.