Father Knows Best

Jason Byrne is sitting in his car outside his house doing interviews so he doesn't wake his kids through the thin walls of his country cottage near Dublin. It's winter. Midnight. The temperature reading on his Jeep's dashboard has just dropped past zero. “Looking forward to Australia? I think I am,” says the shivering Irish comedian.

Byrne's coming to Australia to do a run of Christmas shows in Melbourne, and bringing his family so they can spend Christmas here and then kick on to a friend's wedding in late December. “My wife is really looking forward to it, but dreading it at the same time,” Byrne admits. “She's worried we're ruining Christmas for the kids; they're going to be looking at the sun and they won't think it's Christmas. But it's not even fucking real, Christmas. It's all made up by Coca-Cola anyway.”

Fans of the popular paddy should make sure to get their hands on a ticket, as Byrne says he won't be back to do Melbourne Comedy Festival in April due to work commitments – on the strength of a pilot, BBC1 has picked up his sitcom Father Figure for a full series. “My agent has said 'See all the other little ideas you've got? You can fuck them into a box for the next year because you're doing nothing else.' They're like schoolteachers! 'Get in that fucking office and start writing like a fucking lunatic,'” he laughs. “The hardest part, of course, is making the fucker.”

Byrne is the writer and plays the lead, Tom, a married father with two sons who finds his efforts to be the perfect father thwarted by both bad luck and the antics of his extended family – including Pauline McLynn (who was of course Mrs Doyle in Father Ted) as his mum and Dermot Crowley (Father Liam Deliverance in Father Ted) as his dad. Comedian Michael Smiley also stars. “All I need to cast are the two kids and my wife,” says Byrne, “so now we'll have a good pick of actresses and we can get someone really good. Unless they fucking hate the script! Which they won't, because the scripts are funny. I'd be the first one to say it's shit, but it's not.”

Byrne says he's recently cheered the successes of his Irish mate's sitcoms, Chris O'Dowd's Moone Boy and Brendan O'Carroll's massive success story, Mrs Brown's Boys. “Brendan O'Carroll is basically raping the country, selling 1000 DVDs a second and selling out 9000-seater venues,” Byrne says. “He was telling me just before he got the go-ahead for Mrs Brown's Boys he was playing to hardly anybody. Then one series – and suddenly he was going out and playing massive venues. Fair play to him; I'm just hoping that happens to me!”

But that's all in the new year. For now, Byrne's focus is firmly on the antics he'll be getting up to during his Massive Christmas Special shows. “Why is it called the Christmas Special? Well it's because I'm doing stand-up during Christmas,” he shrugs. “We'll throw in a few Christmas gags and decorate the stage with trees; and I'll do a wee nativity play with the crowd, as well. Oh, it'll be a disaster. It's always a fucking disaster. I have to get Mary, Joseph, a donkey, three shepherds, three wise men, oh, it goes on. And then I have to get people dressing up as lambs for the stable. But it's my three last gigs for the year and it'll be a total shambles, but I won't give a shit. It'll be great craic.”