JASON BYRNE: CAMPING ON THE MOON

JASON BYRNE: CAMPING ON THE MOON (Laughter Lounge, Dublin)

I’M LOOKING forward to reading some of the more pretentious bollocks that is bound to be written about Jason Byrne when he has established Camping On The Moon at the Edinburgh Festival later this month.

Pink tents, asteroids and bare backsides are all conspicuous by their absence from this inspired one-man show, a fact which ought to result in much head-scratching amongst those pseudo-scribes wondering how best to neatly encapsulate the inspiration behind the show’s title.

No doubt some will also feel obliged to argue that the giant effigy of Byrne, which stands behind him on the stage, is a monument to the deep-rooted emotional insecurities which have clearly blighted his lonely existence, thus fuelling this particular stand-up’s innate need to seek the unconditional love of the masses.

Much will be made, too, of the opening 40 minutes of spontaneity in Camping On the Moon, which will be seen as a foundation upon which the protagonist builds the second half of his show – the walls and roof of his deceptively ramshackle performance. Neither will the irony of these loose sketches (in which he is ably assisted by friends, colleagues and willing stooges, John Henderson, Paddy Courtney and PJ) be overlooked. That our hero unwittingly doffs a flat working class cap to his “people” by lampooning the very lifestyle which has made him what he is today will doubtlessly be deemed an ironic-but-necessary pillorying of the life he has left behind in his courageous – but ultimately doomed – attempt to escape the shackles of proletarian drudgery and embark on a crusade in search of the materialistic grail of celebrity.

The majority, of course, will see and tell it like it is: a big, ginger-haired fuckin’ eejit arsing around on stage, making stuff up and eliciting no end of belly laughs from the assembled throng. In short, lunar outposts have never looked so good. Now where did I leave my copy of the Telegraph?

• Barry Glendenning