‘If I tried that one with Deirdre O’Kane, I’d be in a headlock...’

Comedian Jason Byrne tells Niamh Horan about the rush to accuse and the art of Zen Buddhism

STAND-UP comedy and alcohol are a potent mix. As comedian Seann Walsh once wrote: “If you have a great gig, you drink to celebrate. If you have a stinker, you drink to get over it... [and] you get good stories out of it.”

Now a new breed of comic has learned that only ends with the tears of a clown. Take Jason Byrne. Over the years, the Balinteer man has transformed himself from a former electrician into the biggest-selling performer in the history of the Edinburgh Comedy festival.

When he performs, the audience believes he is floating serenely over the water like a swan — but within he is paddling furiously to maintain that veneer.

“One part of the brain is full of your pre-written material, the second is scanning the crowd to see who you can use to bounce off and get involved in the act and then the bit in middle is where all the self-doubt plays out and that’s constantly telling you, ‘well, this is the biggest pile of sh*te I have ever seen’. But every human in the world suffers from that. If you don’t you’re an animal. They just walk around all day feeling f ***ing great.”

Since September, he has clocked up 40 gigs in 38 cities and towns. And with the pint off the table, he has turned to ancient Indian breathing exercises and Zen Buddhism.

“I lie on the ground and listen to a tape. It’s all very deep, fast breathing. The best way of explaining it is like a deep-sea diver who goes underwater without a tank on their back. I’ve gotten to the point where I can hold my breath for up to three and a half minutes... your whole body fills with oxygen… you are gone off into a different zone.

“I also meditate by listening to the beat of a drum. I visualise a Tibetan monk sitting beside me, dressed in orange. We are both in a cellar and he’s always smiling at me.”

Taking the advice of the late philosopher Alan Watts, he says: “You can’t go into meditation looking for it to heal you or make you feel better. It’s not going to work if you want something out of it. You have to have fun doing it and then it just so happens that’s the way it works. I feel I have got more energy and more brain space because of it.”

Alcohol “just makes me go the other way, down not up. I’d have a pint but I’d never have it before stage”.

The recent wave of allegations of sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour in comedy and beyond is something he is loath to address. What he will say is that the uniformed reaction irks him.

“Social media just makes me angry. People who are commenting on it and dishing out their opinion — I don’t like them judging other people when they don’t know any of the facts. Everybody speaking out is a great thing, but trial by media is very dan- gerous. I am not going to say anything until I literally see in a court of law and how everything plays out. I would never judge anybody until I had all the facts right in front of me. This misty smoky [way of debating and judging these issues] when all of it is up in the air — the hearsay and Chinese whispers it’s a f***ing nightmare. You can’t do that, you can’t do that.” He stays away from dark comedy but on the one golden rule of using a risque joke, he says: “In comedy you can joke about who you are and what situation you’re in. “An English man couldn’t get up and take the mick out of ‘Paddies’ — but I can do that because I am Irish. “In the same way, I couldn’t really joke about women’s issues.

“As a man I can only talk about how stupid I am around women, like my wife. And I will take the mick out of myself.”

As for witnessing inappropriate behaviour in the comedy world, he says: “I have never seen any of it. Anyone who I would hang out with would think all that stuff is mental — that it sounds like something in a ‘Carry On’ movie. The women I would [know] in comedy would be very strong women like Deirdre O’Kane or Sarah Millican.

“You wouldn’t be smacking any of them on the bottom. They’d smack you around the head. [Deirdre O’Kane] would say ‘What?!’ Bang! And then you’re in a headlock!” Jason Byrne’s ‘The Man With Three Brains’ is at the National Opera House, Wexford on January 13 and at Everyman Theatre, Cork, on January 26 and 27. It then tours the country from January until March