Culture That Made Me: Jason Byrne talks Tommy Cooper, Fargo and Fawlty Towers
Jason Byrne has developed a one-man play about his father.
Jason Byrne, 52, grew up in Ballinteer, Dublin. His television credits include the RTÉ candid camera series Anonymous.
He’s touring his stand-up show, which includes a gig at Dublin’s Olympia Theatre next Saturday (April 13).
His one-man play about his father, Paddy Lama – Shed Talks, is at Dublin’s Liberty Hall Theatre, April 24-25.
Tommy Cooper was amazing. He’s a massive influence. When I started doing stand-up, I used props based on him. My memory was crap. I was rubbish at learning lines because my brain doesn't work that way, but I could remember my set by laying out different props. I also did big magic tricks that went wrong like sawing people in half in cardboard boxes that fall apart and stupid card tricks. And he taught me one of the greatest moves ever. Whenever talking to the audience – I do it now without thinking – he looked off to the wings with his hands out, as if to go, “What are they like? They're terrible. They're not even listening to me.” He was talking to nobody.
I always liked silly comedy. Kenny Everett used to do all these characters like, say, Gizzard Puke, dressed up as a punk, or he dressed up as this woman with big fake boobs and he’d flick his leg and go, “It's all done in the best possible taste.”
Just messing. There was nothing to it. What was good about his TV shows – there's no audience, but the cameramen are crying laughing at his silly characters, which they kept in. It’s so cool. He was so full of life, such a funny bone.
I love Ozark. I've watched the whole series probably three times. The acting is fantastic and the sense of, I can't wait to see what's happening next. The writing is so good. It’s full of cliff-hangers. Everybody's just about to die. If they take the wrong left, they’re dead. Jason Bateman is a brilliant actor. He looks and seems like the nicest fella that ever walked the Earth, but …
The last series of Fargo – which has Juno Temple, that brilliant girl from Ted Lasso, who’s an amazing actor, in it – prompted Stephen King, the writer, to tweet that it’s keeping TV alive, saying he’s “never seen anything quite like it”. Fargo is brilliant.
Victoria Wood was amazing. She did her piano, her songs, which were very funny, and her wonderful stories. She was a brilliant writer. She did sitcoms, acting, everything. I got to meet her in Edinburgh at a show. It's weird when someone that genius deflects and says, “Oh my God, Jason, you’re wonderful” before I could even say anything to her. The really sad thing was that she was dying of cancer then, and nobody knew. I loved her.
The Monty Python sketches were fantastic. I did very well, very quickly in stand-up because I went for the surreal, the mad type of comedy angle. There was one sketch from Monty Python’s Flying Circus series on the telly. They're lying on the ground, on a path, in London, four of them with ropes, tied to each other, as if they're climbing a mountain. Beside them John Cleese is interviewing them and they're going, “Yes, we've tackled The North Face. We're gonna move on now around to the South Face.” Just lovely, silly stuff.
Fawlty Towers was solid funny. Obviously John Cleese as Basil was brilliant, but a character I loved was the wife, Sybil, played by Prunella Scales, a great actor. How much she annoyed Basil. You knew as soon as she came on set it was going to be hilarious, especially when she said that line to Basil, “You know there's somebody somewhere that has it worse off than you.” He went, “Really? Well, I’d love to meet him.” And the things he used to say to her: “Yes, my little nest of vipers.”
Spike Milligan is the winner for the most mental show ever that was let go on television. It was called Q…. It was a sketch series. He played an old vicar. He'd sit in a chair with flour all over him, and a voice would go, “And now a word from the Vicar of Kent.” The camera would pan to him and he’d look up and sneeze. Powder would go everywhere, off his head, as if he was sitting there for hundreds of years. Then a voice would [softly] go, “The Vicar of Kent.” That was it. Famously, Q…. started before Monty Python. Spike Milligan also wrote all the sketches on The Goon Show; it wasn’t Peter Sellers. Spike Milligan is almost the source of the Nile. He started it all.
The Life of Brian movie was the one we all loved growing up, especially because we were watching it when it was banned in Ireland. We re-enacted scenes in the school yard. One of us would go, “We’re all individuals.” One guy in the crowd would go, “I’m not.” It was genius. They were so ahead of themselves. There was a scene where Eric Idle’s character wanted to be a woman and have a baby. He was told, “You can’t have a baby. You’re a man.” He said, “I’m so offended by that.” It was amazing.
Years ago, Louis CK gigged at the Cat Laughs Festival in Kilkenny. He had a different style of stand-up then. He died on his arse every night. We laughed, telling him, “Louis, you’re a mad bastard.” He went on one night with his little poetry book. Kilkenny festival fans are not comedy fans; they’re on a drinking session. If somebody’s doing a surreal set, they don't get it.
Louis went on stage: “Here's my first poem. It's entitled 9/11.” It was shortly after it. People were going, “Ohh.” And he goes, “1987.” He leaves me howling, especially the stuff he does now. He's something else.
Who I miss and I haven't seen her for so long is Maria Bamford. She's very surreal. She was in Kilkenny as well at the Cat Laughs one year. She goes, “My mother, my mother was always so terrible to me. Every time I put makeup on my face she used to ask me if I was handicapped: ‘You look handicapped with your makeup. You shouldn't wear makeup.’
Joanne McNally is traipsing through the world like a conquering army. She’s so funny. I went to see her recently. Her set is amazing. What’s mad is the whole room was full of women, locked, drinking prosecco. They don't even know what she's saying. They're just laughing, and laughing at the wrong time. I nearly had a heart attack laughing when she talked about having to give white men blowjobs. She said, “It’s like the thing’s not cooked. It looks raw. I’m not putting that in my mouth. I’ll get salmonella or something.”
