Jason Byrne to bring new show to Birmingham and Wrexham following Edinburgh Fringe success

The comedian has an infectious ability to make people laugh and is hitting the road with his new show, Wrecked But Ready, which has just completed a successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe.

The critics agree that Jason has few peers when it comes to leaving you helpless with laughter.

The Daily Telegraph calls him ‘an absolute master at wringing comedy from his audience’. Metro observes: ‘Byrne is consistently brilliant’, while The Times calls him: “The outright king of live comedy.” The Evening Standard, meanwhile, is short and sweet in its assessment: ‘Unmissable’.

Byrne is happy to accept the responsibility for giving his fans a great time.

“People buy my tickets because they say I’m a guaranteed laugh, and people need laughter in their lives,” he says.

“That’s why I can’t go on and selfishly talk about my own misery. People don’t want to go to comedy to hear about your unhappiness – ‘I’ve had a terrible day, and now you’re telling me about your terrible year’.

“After a show, people often say to me, ‘I needed that so much. I got bad news last week, and that really cheered me up’.

“The key is that I just go on and take the Mickey out of myself – and people seem to really like that.”

Jason’s energetic delivery means no two nights are ever the same, and he thrives on unpredictability.

The comic, whose screen credits include Live at the Apollo on BBC1, The Royal Variety Show (ITV1), Don’t Say It, Bring It (Dave), and Wild Things (Sky), thrives on unpredictability.

“My energy is based on the audience,” he continues.

“I feed off them. I include them in everything I talk about, and that’s how I make the show different every night.

“There is no editing and no preplanning. That gives me such a thrill.

“I’m 47 now, and as you get older, they say that the way to stop Alzheimer’s is to keep your brain stimulated. As long as I keep gigging, I’ll definitely keep my brain stimulated.

“I love audience participation because unpredictable things always happen. The great thing is that audiences are not trained and not used to being on stage.

“I do a simple thing where I get three guys up onstage.

“One talks about his job, the second translates using a made-up sign language and the third explains it using interpretive dance.

“So you have got a guy talking into a microphone who has never done it, a guy doing sign language who has never done it and a guy doing interpretive dance who has never done it.

“Because they don’t have a clue about what they’re doing, it’s so funny.”

His interactions help cement Byrne’s relationship with his fans – many of whom, curiously, bring him gifts.

“Every year in Leeds a woman leaves me a pomegranate on stage,” Byrne adds.

“She doesn’t care what I’m talking about – she just wants to give me a pomegranate.

“One year in Birmingham I talked about people in the audience eating. So now in Birmingham they always leave me boiled sweets on stage.

“It’s my own fault for talking to the audience. Dylan Moran would never get that. But I engage the audience and say hello to them – more fool me.”

The comic promises that in Wrecked But Ready he will get a couple on stage to undertake a marriage survey, which, he hopes, won’t lead to them separating.

He will also wear a typically ridiculous outfit of a dinner jacket on the top and underpants on the bottom.

The show will feature his characteristic ad-libs.

“Improvising keeps me stimulated. I don’t have to rattle out the same stuff every night,” he says.

“I was with Ed Byrne at the Kilkenny Comedy Festival and he asked me, ‘Are you going to make up the whole show tonight?’

“I replied, ‘no, I’ve got lots of material’. But then I went on stage and made the whole thing up – just to annoy Ed!”

“I can do both. I can do an hour of scripted material or an hour of improvised stuff. It’s a lovely feeling when people react to something I’ve written, but I get great joy out of everything.”

Jason certainly has some wonderful scripted material.

For example, he has an excellent routine about Britain’s inability to leave the EU.

“I imagine that Britain is like a little girl misbehaving because she won’t leave,” he explains.

“Brussels says to her, ‘OK, Britain, what the hell is going on?’ I fall to my knees and say, ‘We’re going to stay.’ ‘OK’. ‘Actually, we’re going to leave!’

“I also imagine Boris Johnson talking to Brussels, and he keeps saying mad stuff like, ‘I like monkeys’. If you turn politicians into children, you realise that they’re the same thing.”