You gotta be on your toes a bit more says comedian Jason Byrne ahead of North East shows

The Irish comedy legend, Jason Byrne, just kicked of his new major UK tour at the end of last month.

His new show ‘Head in the Clouds’ is coming to the North East multiple times across the tour: first The Stand in Newcastle on October 23 and October 27 but also Stockton’s The ARC on October 24 and 25, Sunderland Fire Station on November 20 and Alnwick Playhouse on November 21.

When we caught up with Jason, he was just coming to the end of a month at the Edinburgh Fringe festival so we were grateful he could take a break from the madness to chat to us!

Take a look at what Jason had to say about his show and the North East below..

How are you Jason?

“I don't know how to answer that. I'm just in the fourth week of the festival in Edinburgh, I’ve done 21 shows, and so I've just come out of Pilates and swimming to try and keep my head straight. But it's okay. This show, when it's in Edinburgh, it's like you come here with -because it's a lot of people's new show you see for the year- you come to Edinburgh and it's all full of splinters and dents and bumps, and then by the time it comes out, it's all polished and shaved and nice and carved and ready to go. You gig every night. It's insane so that's why it's good to go on tour, because I get three days or four days off a week. So that's grand. Back to normal instead of this, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.”

How are you feeling about sending your new show off on a national tour when it is all polished?

“This is so difficult because every single venue, every single town, is a different show every time I do it. Every year. For Newcastle, they're a great crowd, they do a lot of the work for me. So what happens is, I don't bring a support act. Instead, for the first 25/30 minutes of the show, I'll talk to the audience a lot, find out what's going on, mix in a couple of bits of stand up, and in the second half of the show, then ii’s all kind of pre written, they still join in with stuff, but that's why I can't really say, it's like walking a tightrope.

“So my show, I have loads of stuff ready. I may not get to it or I might get to it right. And it just floats. I called it Jason Byrne ‘Head in the Clouds’ because I was sitting thinking about it and it's just how my brain works. Do you know what I mean? When I was in school in - well, I finished in 1989- my God, our teachers were rubbish, like awful teachers. So they used to say stuff to you, you know, ‘you always have your head in the clouds, you’re always daydreaming’ but that's because I was creating stuff in my head! I was that type of child. I wasn't good at maths and good at geography and stuff, I was good at just creating stuff, like art and doing things. So now schools are amazing at that, they help now. A great guy called Sir Ken Robinson said that we get our imagination educated out of us in school - that's bad, right? So I say to my room ‘we're all gonna lock ourselves in here for an hour, and we're just gonna lose the head, right, in a good way. We're gonna forget about all the - just for the hour - all the conflicts, relationships, stuff that's going on. You can even change your name if I ask you, or you can make up your job if I ask you.’

“So I ask a guy - he was in a suit and Irish people don't like people sitting in suits or coats, it makes us feel hot when we're looking at them. I was going ‘are you hot’, he goes, ‘No, I'm okay’. I said ‘Are you in finance?’ and he went ‘No, I'm a pilot.’ And the crowd, all - you know because the Scottish crowd, they don't believe anything, they're pretty street wise- they were going, ‘No, he isn't!’ I went "Are you?’ And he goes ‘No, I'm not a pilot’. I said to him ‘Do you want to be a pilot in this show?’ And he goes ‘Yeah, can I be a pilot for the hour?’ And then I spoke to his partner, and I said ‘What do you do?’ She went ‘I'm a pilot as well’.

“So it’s just been great fun and the crowd, when people get up, oh my god, they've been just absolutely amazing. We had a guy called Mo from Delaware, America, and I kept asking where he was from, but he kept making the shape of Delaware, not the D, the state. ‘I'm from Delaware’ and making this movement with his fingers. So Mo got on stage, and he was maybe late 50s, it was hard to tell, maybe early 60s, but he was able to hip hop. So that was it, he started to hip hop! And another night, I had a guy in a long Mac who was able to do Frank Spencer impersonations, a lot of young people don't even know who that is. I had another guy, I asked him to do animal noises, and he basically started singing ‘The Bare Necessities’ from Jungle Book instead of doing animal noises. So look, all I'm trying to say is we have no idea what's really going to happen in this show. We throw it out there, and then the audience, you know, they'll join in, good or bad.”

So people should expect to be picked on in your shows?

“No, that's a dreadful word. I do not pick on anybody in my show, so I make sure they're okay and they're okay with it. I don't tease them. I don't say horrible things to them. Everything is kept on the nice side of the fence, and that's why they get up on stage and do stuff with me, because they'll go ‘oh, he's not being mean’. The crowd are more mean than I am! I go, ‘No, don't do that, don't say that’, I'm like their teacher, you know? Also I know the body language, I'll never talk to anybody who doesn't want to be spoken to. Here in Edinburgh. I've been recognizing people in the front row and I go ‘were you here last year?’ ‘Yeah’, I said, and ‘were you on stage?’ He goes ‘Yeah’, I said ‘and you're sitting in the front again?’ He goes ‘Yeah, it's okay. I don't mind’. So yeah, there's no picking on ever. It's just fun. I make sure everybody's safe, it's the safest audience participation you'll ever, ever come across. We have clouds in the show for god's sake, that people are putting their heads on. I've got an anxiety blanket that I use as well. It's just insane, the whole thing.“

You're coming to Newcastle twice with your show so how are you feeling about your North East visit?

“You gotta be on your toes a bit more with Newcastle… they are amazing. Last year, I did a routine in my show where I wanted to see who was in the audience, so I did the flake ad song. So I would go ‘only the crumbliest’ and then the crowd all go ‘flakiest chocolate’ and that's how I knew who was there, and the whole lot of them in Newcastle did it, the whole room.

“It's not a great idea to give Newcastle fans a little chant, right, because they're huge football fans- St James’, you know Newcastle- they all sing. They're brilliant football fans. So my own fault. About four or five times, one guy during my show, throughout the whole night, would just go ‘only the crumbliest!’ Then the whole crowd would go ‘flakiest!’ because that's how they start singing in the stands. So yeah expect lots of singing and chanting back in Newcastle”.

Will you get up to anything when you’re in the North East?

“There's a really, really good National Trust house near there. I can't remember the name of it. I am literally in Edinburgh mode, all I know is I'm in a bubble in Edinburgh but once I get back out, I'll remember the names of things.”

What about a night out on the toon?

“No, no way. Not a chance. Are you mental? We go from the venue and we run into the car. I've never seen it like it in my life. It's almost, it's slightly terrifying. But I'm 53, I don't do nights in the town. I go to a pub for a quiet pint.

“So in Newcastle, unless there's an old boozer outside, and we don't really drink on tour either. So normally, we go back out to where we're staying, because Luke will have booked a really cool hotel. We've stayed in stately homes as well, but they're outside the city, so that we wake up in these stately homes.We once stayed in a home that was 400 years old and I mean, they hadn't changed it for 400 years. So the same doors, the same beds and your door didn't even close properly because it was so delicate. But the family have just passed it on and passed it on and passed it on. And then we met the guy who owned it, and he was obviously a blood relative, and he runs it. I went ‘this is amazing’, like huge fires burning. So that's what we do. We try and get out of the cities and out to the stately homes and stay there. Very cultured.”

Is there a reason you're performing in Newcastle twice?

“Yeah, it's too busy! We sell out the Stand really quickly… I think I could stay at the Stand for four weeks. They love going to the Stand, because they can get a bit of food, it's good access in the center of the city and it's quite an intimate setting. The backstage, you know, is tiny. I think two of my stunts won't even be going near that venue. You can't even fit them. You've gotta rejig the show a bit for Newcastle.”

Regardless of where people are, why should they get tickets to come see your stand up show?

“Because it’s a break from the norm, absolute total. Everybody's always said that. I've had so many compliments here, going ‘oh my god, Jason, I so needed that’ so they get fulfilled in the show. Literally, I've had somebody go ‘ thank you for putting my head in the clouds for an hour’.”

If people haven't come across your comedy before, what can they expect from it?

“Well, you'll be more entertained watching the crowd! It's the same people who come back every year. I have to know their names, what's going on, it's like a roll call. And, yeah, I don't really know. I've explained all that earlier, like, the whole show just takes its own kind of course so it's great to watch it unfold. Look I always say this, but it isn’t, it's never the same show. I've had people here in Edinburgh already come back for the third time to see what's going to happen. It's like insane. No pressure, huh!”

Is there anything else in the pipeline for you to mention after this tour?

“I'm working on animation and a possible podcast that's coming up. I obviously can't say about the podcast, because we haven't nailed it down yet. But I've done loads of different people's podcasts, I'm always the guest, and so me and the other person in my podcast, we both do really well as guests on podcasts all the time, and they sometimes use our appearance for awards. I've won awards for other people's podcasts as a guest. So I went, ‘right, that's it. We're finally going to do our own’, and it's going to be like a YouTube, podcasty studio thing. So I'm really looking forward to that, because I'm always on my own. You know, we all work on our own, but when you work with another comic, or whoever it is, it's just such a relief. It's great to just shut up and let somebody else talk.”