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Misc live shows (203)
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Jaik Campbell: L-L-Lost For Words – My Life With A Stutter
James Blood: Apocalypse Soon
James Campbell's Comedy 4 Kids [2007 Fringe]
James Dowdeswell: Wine
James Sherwood’s Somewhat Premature Review of 2007
Janey Godley: Tell It Like It Is
Janey Godley's Chat Show
Janice Phayre: With Occasional Showers
Jarlath Regan: Nobody Knows ... Jarlath Regan
Jarred Christmas: The Hero Show
Jason Byrne: Shy Pigs With Wigs Hidden In Twigs
Jason Byrne’s Telly Idea, Which May Also Work On The Radio…Show
Jason Cook: My Confessions
Jason John Whitehead: Pretending To Be Retarded is Impolite.. and other revelations
Jason Kavan: According To Jason - Chapter 1
Jason Manford
Jay Foreman: 20 Songs for Free
Jay Sodagar: Confessions Of A Logical Mind 2 - Now I Have A Headache
Jeff and Nicko: Amateur Pro-Celebrity Karaoke
Jeremy Boutsakis: Thought Leader - A Conference For Sole Traders
Jeremy Engler: From James Bond to Alexander
Jerry Sadowitz: Comedian, Magician, Psychopath
Jessica Delfino: Songs About Vaginas
Jesus: The Guantanamo Years [2007]
Jim Bowen: You Can't Beat a Bit of Bully [2007]
Jim Bowes: Complaining
Jim Jeffries: 30
Jimmy Carr: Repeat Offender
Jimmy Tingle For President
Jimmy Tingle's American Dream
Jo Caulfield Goes To Hell
Jo Coffey: My Dad's Caravan is Rubbish
Joanna Neary's Little Moments
Jody Kamali: Backpacker
John Bishop: Stick Your Job Up Your Arse
John Gordillo: Free
John Hegley: Letters To An Earwig
Johnny Forgeigner Comedy Show
Johnny Miller presents ... Mike Gilhooly & Rich Luke
Johnson and Boswell: Late But Live
Jokes, Stories And A Different Guest Every Night
Jon Richardson: Spatula Pad
Jonathan Kay: An Audience with Jonathan Kay - Fool!
Josie Long: Trying Is Good
Jude Simpson's Growing Up Games
Juliet Meyers: Meyerspace
Just A Minute [Fringe 2007]
Just So Ever Slightly
Justin Moorhouse: Who's The Daddy
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Jason Byrne: Shy Pigs With Wigs Hidden In Twigs
Shy Pigs With Wigs Hidden In Twigs invites the audience to go with him through 24 hours of his life and its certainly a mad one! What’s it like? Where does he go? What’s the outcome? Or is this just a way of putting stand up in a show in a nice order? In this show he might just talk about his family (including becoming a dad for the second time this year), meeting Charles and Camilla when he performed at the Royal Variety Show last year alongside his comedy chum Lee Mack, or he might not...
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Original Review: Jason Byrne knows how to make an audience feel special. ‘Youse are the maddest crowd ever,’ he says with incredulous glee, repeating the mantra time and again: ‘You’re all mental… fucking insane.’It’s a rather disingenuous form of reverse compliment. In truth, this Monday night crowd seem rather quiet. But tell people something often enough, they start to believe it – so eventually this manic Dubliner gets an atmosphere going, though he works himself into quite a sweat in the process. The obvious truth is that the nuttiest person in the Apollo Theatre tonight is on stage. With wildly disobedient hair, and intense eyes, Byrne looks the part of a man on the verge of insanity, and the rabid passion with which he gets worked up about the most minor of irritations only cements that image. His approach combines the comedy of impotent anger with sheer enthusiasm for people and their quirks. The two sides should be mutually incompatible, but somehow Byrne fuses them magically together. He enjoys just larking about, goading the audience into taking part in his madcap schemes, but gets highly vexed when the responsibilities of the real world intrude on his malarkey. Marriage, especially, he portrays as a millstone around anyone’s neck, seeing it as a bitter, trenchant war of attrition between husband and wife, both spitefully determined never to let the other side ever have fun again. But if it wasn’t for relationships, Byrne wouldn’t have his two children, and his seven-year-old, in particular, proves a rich source of material. ‘A drunken tramp who lives with us,’ the comic describes his hyperactive son, who is prone to saying the most direct, inappropriate things – but out of honesty and naivety rather than any malice. You suspect Byrne envies him. Not that he holds back when it comes to engaging the audience, and most of the first half and some of the second is taken up with imagining bizarre scenarios based on the scant feedback the ticket-holders offer him – whether it be the unfeasibly posh latecomers in row A, or the man wilfully vague about the simplest questions about his place of residence or relationship status. This takes a while to warm up, but Byrne’s a master at weaving between the banter and the material. Only once does he appear to slip up, abandoning a section about euphemisms for sex after he becomes distracted by a semi-random yell of ‘Newcastle’ from the stalls. But then it was probably best we moved on… The freeform approach is devastatingly effective at building a mild hysteria among even the most conservative of crowds, ensuring his pre-planned material about the likes of unfriendly Londoners, Catholic guilt and his disastrous appearance on the Royal Variety Show gets the best of receptions. It’s a genuine shame that his biggest televised gig wasn’t his finest hour, as it will deprive a lot of potential fans of the joy of seeing Byrne in full, majestic flow. He expends so much energy in performance that he risks being slapped with an eco-tax. Lines are delivered bent double, as he holds his head in disbelief at whatever stupidity’s attracted his attention this time; he drops into silly caricatures as exaggerated as you’ll find on South Park; and even strides the stage with a ridiculous goosestep not seen since John Cleese’s day. It all adds to the maelstrom of madness, which reaches its climax with a brilliantly hilarious slice of audience participation – roping in a handful of game volunteers to recreate an illusion with such virtuosic comic incompetence that he makes Tommy Cooper look like David Copperfield. This should be the finale, as it’s simply unstoppable, and the few bits of routine after this cannot hope to match this maniacal high. It’s a world away from the rather cool atmosphere at the show’s outset – and testament to Byrne’s incredible ability to manipulate an audience that he took us so far in the course of a single performance. Reviewed by: Steve Bennett |
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Without question, the funniest man alive Al Rice, September 2007 |
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First class. A young Irish Billy Connelly, maybe better. Iain G Benson, August 2007 |
Jason Byrne: Sheep For Feet And Rams For Hands
Jason Byrne: That's Not A Badger
Jason Byrne
Jason Byrne Hates...
Jason Byrne
Jason Byrne
Channel 4 Comedy Gala 2011
Leicester Comedy Festival Preview Show 2008
Pimm's Summerfest
Jason Byrne’s Telly Idea, Which May Also Work On The Radio…Show
Jason Byrne: Out Of The Box
Adam, Jason & Friends
Jason Byrne: Cats Under Mats Having Chats With Bats
O'Comics 2008
Adam, Jason & Friends [2009]
Jason Byrne: The Byrne Supremacy
Jason Byrne 2010
Jason Byrne: Cirque Du Byrne
Jason Byrne: People's Puppeteer
Comedy Gala In Aid Of Waverley Care 2013
Jason Byrne's Special Eye
