Jason Byrne has his ‘Head in the Clouds’ in new stand-up show

As wildly unpredictable as he is hilariously funny, Irish madcap comedian Jason Byrne will be coming back to Cambridge - a city he always loves performing in - in November.

His new show, Head in the Clouds, comes from a phrase regularly heard outside his shows as the crowd leaves the venue still laughing.

And indeed Jason’s head is (most of the time) stuck in the clouds!

“I started with that [title] because that’s where I was a lot when I was younger,” explains Jason, 53, whom The Times hailed as the ‘Outright king of live comedy’.

“That cliché where the teacher says you’ve got your head in the clouds, and I’ve always been like that anyway - a daydreamer, and that’s how I came to do stand-up.

“So this time I really went for it, I went, ‘What’s the maddest stuff you can do on stage?’ And I’d think of stuff and go, ‘That’s not mad enough - go again’.

“So at the moment I’ve got this silly magic trick I’m doing with a cloud… well it’s not a cloud, it’s a box covered in fluff - it’ll look like a cloud eventually!

“An audience member gets in it and I make them float inside it. Obviously not, because if that was it, it wouldn’t be funny…

“So it’s the usual chaos, and I have young people getting up with baby clouds on their heads and they’ll join in with stuff.

“Just the usual stand-up and the whole thing is just chaos. It’s like ‘adult’s play’, that’s what I’m trying to do.

“I mean me personally, I’m really sick and tired of, working backwards, the Iran conflict now with Israel, with Palestine, with Trump - everything.

“I just don’t want to know anymore - I don’t even put the news on anymore.

“So I try and create this bubble that we can all head into and just seal it behind us, because there’s no political chat in my show - at all.

“It’s almost like a fantasy show, and nobody will be thinking about any of their worries or anything.”

He adds: “I try to create a mad show that I’d enjoy watching, so if I’m going to enjoy watching it, then the crowd will.”

Jason, whose favourite comedians include Lee Mack (“a genius”), Tim Vine (“absolutely brilliant”), Sarah Millican, Tommy Cooper, Bill Burr, Louis CK, Mike Price and Vic and Bob, calls Cambridge “a great place”.

There is also a burning question he has about the city.

“Maybe you can help me, we haven’t seen the guy in the bin that plays the guitar for a while - has he gone?,” he enquires (I replied that I haven’t seen him for a while either).

“Do you reckon the council stopped him doing that?”, wonders Jason.

“I mean every year we would go there [to Cambridge] and we would look for the man in the bin, but I haven’t seen him since before Covid…

“But then we do wander around the beautiful city as well, watching all the fabulous, wealthy children, it looks like, going in and out of their colleges. I’m looking forward to going back.”

Jason’s career has seen him awarded the UK Radio industry’s prestigious Sony Radio Gold Award for his Radio 2 show.

He has hosted his own chat show Jason Byrne’s Snaptastic Show for TV3 in Ireland and co-presented Wild Things on Sky One.

Other television appearances include Amazon’s Last One Laughing, The Royal Variety Performance, The Graham Norton Show, Live at the Apollo, and The John Bishop Christmas Show.

Jason is also hugely popular Down Under, having appeared at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival’s televised galas and The Great Debate, as well as Network Ten’s The Project and New Zealand’s 7 Days.

The much-loved comic released his memoir, Adventures of a Wonky-Eyed Boy: The Short Arse Years, in 2016.

Following the success of this book, Jason published his second in 2023, Memoirs of a Wonky-Eyed Man: The Dad-Knows-Best Years, a celebration of life and of his wonderful relationship with his dad.

Highlighting the ‘what’s he going to do next?’ aspect of the thoroughly recommended Jason Byrne live experience, the comic reveals what fellow stand-up Peter Kay said to him after he attended one of his shows: “I can’t work out where stuff starts but stuff ends”.

Jason will be presenting Head in the Clouds at the Cambridge Junction (J2) on Friday, 28 November. Tickets, priced £33, are available from junction.co.uk. For more on Jason, go to jasonbyrne.ie.