Comedy review: Jason Byrne, Perth

COMEDY

Jason Byrne: Cirque de Byrne

Perth Theatre, Perth

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Ever the lord of misrule and the abbot of unreason when he performs in Scotland, Jason Byrne has a wonderful habit of arriving in a town, failing utterly to grasp the local history and culture while making the audience feel integral to his performance.

In a circus ringmaster’s top hat and jacket, the touched Dubliner began with a frenetic display of Irish dancing, a legacy of his appearance on the forgettable ITV learn-a-skill show Born To Shine, about which he remains justifiably bitter.

Face contorted in trademark, pinched gurn, Byrne repeated his refrain that the Irish (and Scots) are a miserable race, in stark contrast to Australian optimism and US president Barack Obama’s handsome charisma, before comparing today’s terrorists with the IRA’s “gentlemen” bombers, who at least had the good grace to call in warnings.

All seriously hack, unoriginal observations. Yet this pre-prepared material scarcely accounted for ten minutes of his opening 45, so relentlessly and at times hilariously did he interrogate the crowd and allow himself to be baffled by their references to Scone Palace and the Stone of Destiny.

A satisfying second half demanded more and the Irishman delivered, with bouts of the crudely graphic, sexual miming that’s so often been another regular standby, recalling the dire consequences of his adolescent lust for the Cadbury’s Caramel bunny.

Nevertheless, it was a couple of delightfully surreal, devilishly inspired episodes of audience participation that really brought the big top down.

Jay Richardson