Lonely Planet is unlikely to compare any Australian city to Roscommon. It’s probably because their well-pawed travel guides are written from a different perspective to that of Jason Byrne, who has noticed something strange about Adelaide on his latest visit.
“[Adelaide’s] exactly like Roscommon. It’s like the middle of Ireland. They all look at you in a strange way. And they’re really nice in a sort of Labrador way.
“You can’t figure out whether they want to stab you or hug you,” says the Dublin-born comedian.
After appearing on Channel Ten’s Good News Week, Adelaide residents have begun to stop him in the street to say they had watched the show.
“The only famous people they have are newsreaders and footie stars. But, it’s a really nice place.”
Byrne has come to Australia for a 10-week tour with Cirque de Byrne, his latest show, which adds a burlesque backdrop to his manic stand-up. Incorporating skipping and plate-spinning, Cirque de Byrne see the comedian ask the audience to bring him some gifts.
The idea came from London audiences who began to leave him gifts after routines.
“I’d get weird stuff and stuff that was just not any use at all.
“I did a television special for RTÉ at Christmas and I got celebrities to bring gifts. Some actress from Fair City gave me a Bell X1 teapot. That just fired me off into making her out the be a very strange person…
“Another guy brought in a hand-knitted Santa Claus from Mexico and in Mexico Santa is the devil!”
An evil Santa was not the most unusual gift. Fans also “leave underwear quite a lot” and one enthusiastic fan makes customised Byrne boxer shorts.
“He made these pair of boxer shorts and on the front was a cactus… and on the arse he had stuck my face. So, yeah…”
It seems adulation comes in different shades and fabrics.
He says audience participation and humiliation that he has become renowned for is his “version of silliness”.
He says that he has been doing stand-up for long enough to know who to avoid picking on, basically anyone who looks shifty “or a little bit mental”.
It’s his sixth visit to Australia and over the years the country has made a great impression on him. Waking up early with jet lag, he has noticed how active Australians are” “Their getting up is mental.”
Byrne splits the Irish in Australia into two camps – the newly arrived begrudgers and the Australianised residents.
He plans to avoid the former and goes so far as to call them ‘wankers’.
“The Irish person who has been here for a year or so is brilliant. Because the best version of an Irish person, is one who has to live like an Australian. The begrudgery and two-facedness has gone out of them.
“I had an episode where a girl went: ‘Jason Byrne, Jesus Christ, if my Mammy knew I was talking to you she would kill me – she hates you’.
“And all these other Irish people turned around and told her: ‘Oh, don’t do that here. We don’t put people down; we don’t do that here anymore. Don’t fucking ruin it with the Irish whinge’.”
He recalls how he and Des Bishop encountered two Cork men in St Kilda last year. The pair was resplendent in GAA jerseys and had arrived just four days before.
“They had food and bits of crap hanging on them. And they’re standing there with their shopping, obviously, because their Mammy said ‘When you arrive now, make sure you get your shopping done’.
“And they had Rice Krispies and sliced pans in their shopping bags. They had no work and they looked like fucking knackers!” says Byrne, with a chuckle.
If certain Irish appear gauche, then blame the comparisons to “trendy” Australians.
“Australians are so trendy, especially the women, they make such an effort. Especially in Melbourne. Oh, yummy!” says Byrne with glee.
“All those business district types walking around in their fancy clothes.”
His latest visit to Australia is welcome respite from the mood in Ireland.
For a man who makes a living out of laughter he shares serious concerns about his homeland’s decline. “It’s much better [being in Australia] than being home in Ireland where the new government is just formed and, of course, all they will say is it’s not their fault the whole time they are in.
“People are trying to get their finances in order and it’s very difficult. I don’t hear any of that over here. It’s a brain holiday, if anything.”
He dubs life in Ireland a “future grim”, which has made life Down Under seem very appealing.
“I’m walking around this country here where I’m actually gigging decent-sized venues, some of them 1,500 or 1,000 [capacity], and I’m thinking ‘Jesus, I could easily live here’.”
Australian audiences give him an easier time too. Because in Ireland, says Byrne, everyone’s a comedian.
“I don’t really get away with more but you don’t have to work as hard as in Ireland, because you are Irish and everybody in that audience already has a funny story,” says Byrne.
“That’s what we do and that’s how we’re brought up – to tell stories. So when an Irish person goes to see a stand-up they are thinking it better be funnier than all their stories. Eventually they warm to you.”
By Luke O’Neill
