one4review | On 08, Aug 2014

Jason Byrne is always a must see act of the Edinburgh Fringe as far as I’m concerned. His mischievous personality just makes the whole show a joy to be part of.

He’s not a man who just casually walks on to the stage to start telling jokes and this year is no exception with his entrance having the audience in hysterics before the show even starts. He explains that he made the same entrance at the Royal Variety Performance and was hoping to be able to shake hands with Prince Charles wearing the same ‘costume’ but was asked to change beforehand.

Fed up of coming up with titles for his show he decided this year to offer a prize to the best title of the run. Members of the audience provide 3 suggestions at the end of the show then he’ll pick the best. He kicks off the show with getting to know his audience and selects someone to spin his game show wheel with various topics written on it, he then recalls one of his observational quips about the subject. The night I was there some of the topics covered were wife (having been married for over 10 years he has plenty material to draw on) magic, dad, where he tells an extremely entertaining story of why his dad no longer uses aeroplanes to travel.  Some of the topics involved audience participation and the audience members involved were all fantastic and really entered into the spirit of things. Some even randomly got involved due to a rogue golf ball rolling onto the stage, part of a drinking game apparently.

I laughed for the full hour of the show as did everyone around me. I would highly recommend this show if you like unstructured silliness.

Reviewed by Sharon

Assembly Hall

21.00 to 22.00