Jason Byrne

Don't, whatever you do, take crisps into the room

Review by Hannah Thomas | 08 Aug 2007

Peckish before a show? What do you do? Grab a packet of crisps, smuggle them past the ushers then subtly slip them into your mouth one by one whilst attempting to muffle the rustling with your jumper. Nobody's going to notice, right? Wrong. As one unfortunate audience member watching Jason Byrne discovers, the crackling of a crisp packet is never quiet enough. Beady-eyed Byrne spots the crisp-muncher, jumps down and grabs the packet. "I hope I'm not annoying anyone at the show," he drawls sarcastically, shoving the microphone deep into the foil to excentuate the noise, "yer mad fucker!"

With this off-the-cuff scene Byrne kickstarts a series of hilarious exchanges with audience members, his improvisational comedy constituting a sizable portion of the act. Nobody is safe from the comic's crackling wit: a pensioner Byrne terms "dad" receives the same treatment as a gangly sixteen-year-old dragged up on stage. As innocent replies are spontaneously transforned into dirty jokes, the audience are torn between laughing uncontrollably and sympathising with the latest victim of the comic's razor-sharp reactions.

But Byrne isn't too cruel. He's an affable character who pokes fun at his prey, gently embarrassing his victims with a smile rather than dismantling their confidence piece by piece. A tendency to giggle uncontrollably at his own jokes serves to emphasise the light-hearted nature of the act; proving to be infectious rather than annoying, his onstage corpsing provokes belly laughs from the audience that reverberate around the gigantic auditorium.

A welcome break from more politically-orientated comedians, Byrne's scripted material is drawn from personal experience. Themes of childbirth (his son emerged looking jaundiced due to the fake tan adorning his wife's legs), children ("drunken little tramps") and the Royal Variety Show abound, demonstrating the comic's talent for storytelling.

If you fancy some straightforward stand-up then Jason's your guy. His act won't blow your mind but it'll leave you chuckling and certainly wanting more...as long as you're not the one with the crisps.