Byrne Notice

Jason Byrne is well-known by legions of fans in his native Ireland, the UK and here in Australia, but he's about to become a true household name by scoring the “holy grail”, a BBC1 sitcom which he created and stars in, titled Father Figure, about a stay-at-home father of two. When he answers his phone, it's late night in Ireland; Byrne wrapped filming on the sitcom at London's Elstree Studios a couple of days before and is relaxing with fellow comedian Eric Lalor.

“I hadn't gigged solo in months – thank fuck they were nice, it was a big weight off me,” he says. “I'd never stopped for that long in seventeen years of gigging, and I was worried I wouldn't remember how to do it. I'm such a fucking idiot. I could have stopped for five years and it wouldn't have mattered. I tried out loads of new material; I go to Edinburgh now for four weeks and then I'll be so match fit when I get to Australia [with Special Eye]!”

Byrne is known for his wild nights of audience participation, crazy improvisation and off-the-cuff shenanigans – anything can happen at his gigs. Many comedians joke to the audience about mass hiding while an audience member goes to the toilet, but Byrne's actually done it, squeezing hundreds of people behind the stage curtain to jump out on one poor weak-bladdered woman. So how did he handle the tightly-scripted world of TV?

“It was weird, going from comedian to actor. The discipline of it all – having to deliver your words so the next actor wouldn't fuck up. But it was great craic – I'd fucking do it forever! People just kept handing me lattes and drinks and asking if I was all right, and if I went to pick something up they'd be like, 'Doooon't pick that up! Jeeeesus! You're irreplaaaaceable!' If I was treated like that, imagine how Tom Cruise is fucking treated.”

Byrne also says he couldn't get over the fact that as the show's writer, he was given an army of production minions who had to realise whatever came out of his brain. “It was weird when you arrive on a set and they've built everything you've written! I was like, 'holy shit'. I wrote a scene where I had to fall off a roof and they built the whole top of a house! And the actual studio we shot in was where the Millennium Falcon was [for Star Wars in 1977]. Loads of Star Wars was shot in Elstree, it was hallowed ground. But then Big Brother was on at the bottom of the street, and that wasn't very hallowed ground. I think if you threw a bomb in there you would get rid of a lot of arseholes, quite frankly – but I didn't get time to do that.”