Jason, Mary and Holy Saint Joseph

“What do you mean?” Jason Byrne wonders, when I suggest that his debut RTE offering The Jason Byrne Show wasn’t the best example of his talents. “I was happy with 70% of that show,” he continues. “Leave that alone, don’t put that in your mouth, Jesus, mind the thing…”

I beg your pardon?

“Sorry about that, I’m minding my son, Devin,” explains Jason. “I’ve been so busy recording up in Belfast that he’s still excited that I’m back. Where were we?”

We were talking about his debut talk-show which aired on RTE earlier this year. With live dates lined up for Christmas and two new series in production with BBC Northern Ireland, it’s clear that the show hasn’t done him any harm. But that’s not necessarily how it seemed to some observers at the time.

A collection of stand-up, sketches and interviews, the series had its moments yet drew considerable criticism from television columnists and those odd people who write to national newspapers signing off as ‘Disgusted, Roscommon.’

“I really liked a lot of the show and while I know it wasn’t as well received as it might have been we were solidly increasing our viewing figures throughout the series,” insists Jason. “The first show played to 120,000 people, the final show drew over 200,000 viewers. There were other factors such as the suggestion that the cancellation of Bull Island was somehow our fault, and I’d be the first to admit that I wasn’t the world’s greatest interviewer but I loved the audience interaction and the sketches. In fact the one review that I thought hit the nail on the head was Liam Fay’s summation of the show in The Sunday Times where he acknowledged that at least it was clear that I was working my arse off.”

Jason’s interview technique might have needed some polish but then he had his work cut out for him when interviewing, for example, Johnny Vegas.

“That’s what I mean,” he laughs. “I remember asking Johnny, ‘So, where are you from?’ and then him saying, “You know where I’m bloody from, you lying bastid Byrne, don’t get all showbiz on me…’ “I just wanted to mess about, have the craic but RTE insisted that I get…information. The original plan was for me to interview Graham Norton while we were both under hair dryers, or interview Tommy Tiernan in hell… In the end I was asking Tommy what he’d been doing lately, and he can’t keep a straight face because what he’s actually been doing is going out on the piss with me. So I learned a lot about interviewing. I learned to shut the fuck up, really. Television people are really good at telling you that you can do whatever you want until that is, you attempt to do whatever you want. Then it’s a bit mad. Then there’s not enough money.”

Did he think there might be an element of begrudgery in the way the show was received?
“In Ireland there’s always going to be an element of that,” he considers. “It’s from watching our country being invaded countless times. You think, ‘This time they’ll fall on their arse’. You’ve Been Framed should be huge in this country, ‘Look, that dog’s drownin’ Ha! Ha!’ I mean, I do it myself with mates, ‘Jesus, I saw you in that ad, y’eejit…’ But I never imagined the show would appeal to the wider public. I was always planning on it being a cult show, playing to a young audience. The people who come to my live shows are usually early 20s and under and prepared for the mayhem.

“But funnily enough a guy came up to me in the street recently and said he loved the show and explained he’d watched it in Mountjoy jail, where the scr…warders would tape it and play it for the guys the next day. And again, this guy introduced me to his mate, explaining who I was and his mate finally goes, ‘Oh yeah, from the telly… You’re shite!’ And they both crack up! But if the next shows are panned I know who I’m going to send around.”

What can he tell us about his new TV projects?

“One is a music based quiz presented by Colin Murphy and I’m one of two team captains,” he responds enthusiastically. “It’s very funny, very surreal and before you ask, it’s a million miles away from Never Mind The Buzzcocks. It’s called Elvis Has Left The Building and basically it’s an excuse to mess…

“The other show is a solo thing in front of a studio audience and we’re working on the pilot at the moment. Basically it’s a game show where I make up the games and invite members of the audience up to play, so there’s a lot improv and ad-lib. There’s a lot of hidden stand-up in there.”

It sounds a lot more like the Jason we know and love from his live shows. Speaking of which, what can we expect from his Christmas live outings?

“Well I still love the live shows and I like to do something a bit special for Christmas,” he enthuses. “I’m back with John Henderson and PJ Gallagher and we’re writing a little more for this one than we’ve done in the past. But again you can expect what we always deliver which is something totally unexpected… We always work stuff out and then you’ll get into a conversation with people in the crowd and the whole idea goes out the window, but I don’t mind once it’s funny. You get into the flow of it and so do the audience. The theory is that you write some stand-up and weave some improv around it, but if the improv is going well the temptation is to go with that. Obviously you can’t spend the whole night asking people where they’re from and what they do. But if someone says they work as a brain surgeon or as a bin man or as a record producer you’re going to ask them about the job, because it’s interesting to me and to the audience.”

In the background Jason’s son Devin, at two-and-a-half is doing an excellent job of signaling the interview’s end. Has married life and fatherhood settled the madcap comedian down at all?

“In a funny way it has,” confesses Jason. “Because I don’t see Brenda and himself as often as I’d like so my idea of an ideal night out is a quiet night in with a video after the child goes to bed. That or gigging in front of a thousand people, either one.”