It's quite mad: comedian Jason Byrne takes an atypical approach to the art 'n' craft of laughterdom - he doesn't write any material, ever. No scripts, no set-pieces, no fall-back routines. Instead he simply makes things up as he goes along in a frenzy of improvisation that ensures that no two of his showsare the same. But his isn't the usual, bog-standard "gynaecologist at the top of the Eiffel Tower" type of improvisation you see on the television - it's like anacid-distorted version of that and it sees Byrne and his very odd props winging it as he goes along - taking chances and running risks without a safety net.
The audacity and freshness of his approach has marked him out as one of the comic names of the moment. As well as his current box-office storming antics at the Edinburgh Fringe, he's also one of the stars of Channel 4's Edinburgh or Bust series, which is charting the paths of a number of comics as they prepare, arrive and perform at the festival. As if the festival alone wasn't stressful enough for the young man, he also has to put up with a camera crew in his face all month.
"The Channel 4 team are actually filming this conversation," says Byrne. "They're with me everywhere I go. I've actually no complaints, it's helping to fill out my shows and it's a bit of fun too." Why, of all the legions of Irish comics, did Channel 4 single you out? "I don't know, but they've always seemed to like me from day one. I've been on their Gas comedy programme twice in the last year and next month I'm starring in my own special for them." What's that all about? "It goes out under the name Comedy Lab and it has me at a scarecrowfestival in a village outside Manchester," he says, as if this is an everyday occurrence in his life (maybe it is). All very Dadaesque then? "I s'pose so. There's no live stand-up in it at all. It's me playing loads of different characters that I just make up on the spot and I just speak off the top of my head. It's a bit on the mad side." Quite.
Only 26, Jason Byrne first decided to get up on stage and "make things up" three years ago. Arriving on the scene at the same time as the second wave of Irish comics such as Tommy Tiernan and John Henderson, his was a voice unlike any heard before on the circuit. He would arrive on stage in the Comedy Cellar with a false pair of legs, an out-of-tune accordion, a big stick and a magic "flying anorak" and then proceed to collapse the audience with a series of surreal observations and some inspired lunacy. It was the originality of his work thatdistinguished him from the pack. While other comics were doing routines about relationships, Jason was laughing manically and throwing his voice around the stage in a variety of different accents. With no beginning, middle or end to hisperformance, he could do anywhere from 10 minutes to two hours.
"The only sort of feedback I get from people about my act is that they're always saying to me how different it is from traditional stand-up," says Byrne. "I suppose I just didn't have the same influences as everyone else, I was always more into people like Tommy Cooper, Spike Milligan and Peter Cook, and those sort of acts who promoted surreal madness. The only core to my act is the props, of which I have loads, and I tend to pick them up at intervals and just play around with them.
Everything is always improvised but if something really works well, I tend to build it into the next show and use it again. But it's a constant process of building on what I've done in the past and always pushing myself to take more risks." Just six months after first appearing on stage, Jason went to his first Edinburgh in 1996 and ended up coming second out of 500 entrants in Channel 4's talent search So You Think You're Funny. He quickly found himself an agent (the same woman who acts for Ardal O'Hanlon and Tommy Tiernan) and flung himself on to the London comedy circuit as well as cropping up in the odd film role, such as the recent The General.
Currently jamming out his 150seat venue in Edinburgh, he flips into uncharacteristic coy mode by refuting suggestions that he's the talk of the Fringe. "All my gigs are selling out which is great. I mean, you hear of established British comics who come up here, people much more famous than me, who end up losing £8,000. And the reviews have been good too, both the localScottish press and the national broadsheets." What about a bottled water nomination? "No idea. I know a lot of people are coming to see me just because they recognise my face from Edinburgh or Bust, so maybe that's a bit of an artificial boost. But I keep hearing over here that I'm a `maverick' and I think people appreciate the danger I go through by going on stage for one hour every night with no material and just making things up as I go along. In reality, though, I have about 60 per cent fall-back situations which I can use that I have used before. A lot of it depends on the make-up of the audience. If they're with me and into what I'm doing, I feel I can do anything, no matter how mad it is, like getting them to fly around the venue with me. If they're more of a `come on, make me laugh' audience then I have to try and bring a bit of structure to the proceedings."
Like Ardal O'Hanlon and Dylan Moran before him, he was given his break by a British television station and not by the national broadcaster. Any feelings about that? "I don't really feel very strongly about it, I just think it's a bit of a shame. I did do a pilot thing for RT╔ but they never went with it. Maybethey thought I was just a bit too `out there' but I really don't know. In television terms, I owe Channel 4," he says.The only problem for Jason at this festival is that he couldn't bring over his 14-foot puppet with him. "It's a big, giant version of me and it was made to coincide with the TV special next month. When we had it in Dublin, a person got inside it and marched all the way from Stephen's Green down to the Laughter Lounge on Eden Quay. Seeing a giant version of yourself walking around Dublin is a very strange experience - even by my standards."
Tomorrow night, Jason Byrne faces the press in Edinburgh or Bust, Channel 4, 11.30 p.m. His Channel 4 special will be broadcast in late September. His next Irish gig is at Dublin's Laughter Lounge on October 4th.
