Jason Byrne – Comedian returns to Tallaght for his new tour

Are you looking forward to performing in Tallaght?

Only if the weather cools down a bit, cause it’s bleeding roasting! We’ll just be sitting around the venue like a bunch of cats if it doesn’t calm down a bit.

The great thing about Tallaght is that they pretty much write the show for you – you bring them up on stage and try a few things and see what works and what doesn’t.

But the people in Tallaght seem to love me, so it’s easy enough. I could do anything and they’d laugh, so I look forward to it.

Are you excited for Ireland’s Got Talent Season 2?

Yeah, it’s great craic, and it’s just dead easy to be a part of it. I was talking to Louis, Michelle, and Denise about how their job is to judge people, but all I do is have the craic when I’m on the show.

They were going mad at me, but it’s something different and I love being a part of it, and it’s definitely not as hard as performing stand-up all around.

Auditions start in November, and hopefully it will be on the telly in the new year sometime.

What is it like performing since being a part of the show?

I was doing a gig at Body & Soul there a few weeks ago and I had this hour-long show full of my usual stuff prepared for it.

I walked out on stage and I just seen about 40 kids in the crowd, and I didn’t know what to do with all this material I had prepared that was obviously not kid-friendly.

I had to dial it down a good bit, and I pretty much was forced to improvise the entire show.

My brain was just like ‘what’s this, a challenge? What are we going to do here?’, and that’s what Irelands Got Talent has done for me I guess – it brings an entirely different audience.

Father Ted was 20 years ago, how was it to work with Dermot and be a part of it so early in your career?

I was asked by Graham Linehan to be part of the show, and all he said to me was “can you run around backwards for a week?”, and young me was just like “ehh yeah”.

I first met Dermot at the table read, along with Ardal, Pauline, Frank, and Arthur, and there is nothing better than just having one line in something.

I kept stuttering when I was trying to say my only bleeding line, and Graham had to say “what are you doing?” a few times.

But I’d be waiting around all day just to say that one thing, and I’d almost thought too much about it – that’s why I just kind of shouted “these are fake hands!” in the end. It was fantastic.

Did you expect the reception you received around your book ‘Adventures of a Wonky-Eyed Boy’?

What was the story with that? When you’re writing a book, you don’t expect people to read it, you just write it and say ‘right get away from me’ when it’s finished.

But yeah, it was great to see it get nominated for an award and doing so well. I’m working on a kids’ book at the minute and that’s a whole different ball game, because you can’t be patronising, and you have to tell kid-friendly jokes while trying to hold their attention.

I have many strings to my bow as they say.

Have you got any memories from Tallaght?

We used to go up to The Hellfire Club a lot when I was younger and meet a few ‘heads’ from Tallaght while we were up there.

They’d pretty much chase us around the building up there for a few hours because my crew from Ballinteer wasn’t tough enough.

I also remember going up to The Square with my mam when it first opened, and I’d be wondering what’s going on with the shape of it because it’s not even a square is it? It’s a pyramid.

I guess ‘The Pyramid in Tallaght’ doesn’t ring as good as ‘The Square in Tallaght’ does.

Jason will be performing in The Civic Theatre on July 20 in a sold-out show, whilst his tour You Can Come In But Don’t Start Anything will return to the Civic in February 2019.