Comedian Jason Byrne can't quite pin down what his style of show is about but promises props, audience involvement and more than a few laughs.
It might be his first time to New Zealand, but Irish comedian Jason Byrne reckons he's got us Kiwis sussed - almost.
"I can't match Auckland up to any other city, apart from, well it's very like Ireland. The old Australians used to be nuts and they would never follow rules, but now they do. And here it looks like they don't, so now I feel at home.
"I'm liking the way the traffic is crossing each other without indicating, pedestrians are fair game, and everyone is taking the piss out of each other and that's the Irish way. Is that the Kiwi way? Okay, I've got to get that into my head."
Byrne is in Auckland with his stand-up show People's Puppeteer for the NZ International Comedy Festival.
The name might sound like he's doing a one-man version of The Muppets, but Byrne says all is not quite as it seems.
"It becomes a big kind of rollercoaster mish-mash. My show is so hard to explain - I have stand up, I have props, I have people come up onto the stage to help me, but I'm not a magician. I've called it People's Puppeteer but there are no puppets. And I tend to use the audience to do stuff.'
When pushed on what, exactly, he means by "stuff", Byrne is willing to let one stunt slip - playing men's testicles with xylophone sticks. Don't worry, the whole thing is done from the outside of the trousers, but it's just a taste of what this cheeky redhead offers his audience.
"With my show you'll learn nothing, there's no deep meaning, and it's not political or heavy. It's basically just me making people laugh. And I get paranoid if people don't laugh the whole time... we need people laughing all the way."
Byrne has been on the comedy scene for 15 years, and has performed at Edinburgh Festival a mammoth 14 times. It's no surprise then, that's where the best crowd moments have happened.
"I did a show where a girl went to the toilet. It was 160-seater, I remember that, and she went to the toilet and I said to the audience "let's hide". We all went out the laneway where the exit was, they left their coats and bags, and we hid and I looked through the door. She came back in on her own and she was looking around the room, then she went back out again and came back in again and I opened the door and went 'surprise.'
"In that same room, about a week later, there was a heckler in the front row and he wouldn't shut up, so I just literally picked him up, I kicked open the door and threw him into the laneway.
"So be careful in this show, don't sit by an exit door."
Jason Byrne - People's Puppeteer May 1 - 5 at Rangatira at Q. Tickets $32 from the venue
- © Fairfax NZ News
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