Can't buy me laughs

JASON BYRNE, 16TH FEBRUARY 2005, BIRMINGHAM GLEE CLUB

It's not the most auspicious of openings to a comedy gig.

For a comic like Jason Byrne, who evidently creates most of his material on the spot with what his audience feeds him, tonight's crowd looks like being a bit of a nightmare. The first few things he tosses out are met with stony silence. No-one is forthcoming with a response.

And THEN he winds up asking someone in the front row how they got in for free.

"Well, it's a bit embarrassing...", comes the reply.

Byrne's eyes light up. He rubs his hands together and chuckles, in anticipation of an amusing confession he can torment the poor lad with all evening. "Come on then, let's hear it."

"Well, I'm on the venue's mailing list and I got an email saying they hadn't sold many tickets and offering them for free if you replied quickly..."

If Byrne's taken aback by the discovery that nearly everyone present (including myself) is there gratis - and he must be - he does a good job of hiding it, hardly missing his stride. Slowly but surely, he turns things around.

Any lingering suspicions that he's trading too heavily on the fact that an Irishman wildly shouting "You fuckin' eejit" and "You little bollocks" is just inherently funny are dispelled in the second half.

Of course it helps that the audience has thawed out and relaxed - one even going so far as to vomit on another. A bloke who designs concrete slabs for a living and a couple who Byrne mishears say they were married by a farmer are meat and drink, and, if he doesn't quite have the surrealism or cleverness of a Ross Noble, Byrne is quick-witted enough to riff entertainingly on whatever comes his way, ridiculing individuals without ever doing so aggressively.

When he inserts segments of prepared material, then, it can't help but feel a bit more contrived than it would ordinarily, but that's simply a testimony to his ability to freestyle for long periods without coming unstuck. His gags range over well-trodden comic territory - men and women, marriage, the English - but still raise more than a few laughs, and he leaves everyone more than satisfied.

So, first it was a free gig, now free comedy - it's like I've regressed back to the days of consummate blaggerdom on the student magazine... Anyone want to send me any free CDs?

An aside: It's a bad sign that an established comedy venue like the Glee Club - with acts like Ed Byrne, Daniel Kitson and Dara O'Briain appearing in the next couple of months - can sell so few tickets for a gig that it has to give them away. Byrne might not be in the popular consciousness just yet - something destined to change when he makes the leap to TV with his BBC series 'Jason Byrne Hates...' due to be screened in the autumn - but he's certainly of no little repute on the national comedy circuit. In my endeavours to accommodate myself to Birmingham, I try to compare it to Nottingham as little as possible - but, let's face it, Darryl would never let this happen at Just The Tonic.