How do you make a roomful of people laugh when their Queen has recently passed away?
It’s a question any stand-up starting an autumn run must be asking, and I did wonder what the atmosphere would be like at The Stand in Newcastle on Thursday as Jason Byrne opened his 2022 UK tour. His shows, both at the Edinburgh Fringe and the gigs on his annual autumn tour, are notorious for reducing audiences to tears - would people be ready to laugh hard?
They were, and he handled the situation with skill, judging the mood just right as he eased us in by immediately referencing what’s happening but without any sense at all of ‘and here I am to make light of it’. It was a gentler start from a man who’s previously had me in tears within five minutes of coming on stage. But it was exactly what was needed up until the moment when he said something about a Dundalk woman he was chatting to in the audience that raised a scream of laughter, and we were off.
