The stand-up Jason Byrne has a special connection with his audience, and that rapport is crucial to his appeal.

“The interaction with the audience is vital,” confirms the comic.

“I’m very much a people person, and every night the audience make me laugh a lot. Punters are really funny. One time, I had three guys on stage wearing horses’ heads and running on the spot. They were doing involuntary comedic movements and had no idea what they looked like. I was just laughing my head off.”

This is typical of the wonderfully daft, totally winning sense of humour that characterises Jason’s stand-up. It has helped make him one of the most in-demand comedians around.

The excellent news is that you can now experience his wondrous act first-hand as he is about to embark on a huge nationwide tour with a brand-new show entitled, “You Can Come In, But Don’t Start Anything.” 

People who are lucky enough to get a ticket for the tour, are in for a real treat. Jason is a mesmerising live act who simply dazzles audiences with his sheer madcap energy. As he triggers laugh after laugh after laugh, his constant stream of marvellously inventive material scarcely allows audiences the chance to breathe.

Even if you’ve seen the master of improv before, you should undoubtedly come again, as you can never be certain what his live shows will deliver. Part of Jason’s enduring brilliance lies in his ability to take audiences completely by surprise. Every show is a different comic tour de force.

Jason is a fully-fledged legend of the Edinburgh Festival where he has played for 23 consecutive years and is officially the Fringe’s biggest selling funnyman ever.

He has a particular love for British audiences.

The comedian, who has also carved out a very successful career as a judge on ‘Ireland’s Got Talent’ (TV3), explains that, “British audiences are totally brilliant. They are really clued into comedy. They’re very open-minded and don’t mind what avenue you take.

“For instance, in Lincoln the ceiling in the venue is very low. An iron girder runs through the middle of it – I’d bang my head on it if I ran off stage without thinking. So every year, the audience encourage me to try and kick it. They urge me to play ‘Kick the Girder’. Every year so far I’ve managed it. But I’m getting older so I don’t know how high I can go this year!”

The other delight for Jason is the fact that audience members are more than willing to take part in the show. “They have no problem getting on stage,” beams the comic. “They’re great. They love joining in.

“It’s like a sitcom is taking place in the room; the audience are the characters and I’m the writer. They might be wondering why they’ve paid to come – I should be paying them! It’s also great to see the same faces in the audience year after year. Perhaps I should have called the show, ‘The Reunion’!”

Such is Jason's bond with his audience that – quite unprompted – his fans now bring comedy props along to his show.‎ The Irishman, who in person is comic, charming, compelling, charismatic, coruscating, captivating and (sometimes) crazy - gives an example of the sort of presents that his aficionados donate to him on stage.

“Every year when I perform in Birmingham, a woman brings me a pomegranate,” reveals the comedian. “That’s because one year I invited people to bring props, and I had to make up a routine about them on the spot. This woman brought a pomegranate.

“So every year since she has brought me a pomegranate, and every year I have to do a different routine about it. It’s really just me talking while I hold a pomegranate and take the micky out of this woman. So you could describe the show as stand-up and stunts and props – and a pomegranate!”

The other point to make is that Jason is only ever laughing at himself – not at the audience. “The joke is always on me,” he said. “I can’t go on stage and say, ‘I’m so fantastic and you’re all idiots’! I have to be a complete idiot, and the audience have to be the stars. No one’s going to be upset. Everyone leaves a hero.”

Apart from Jason’s unbridled exuberance on stage, the other element that electrifies his audience is his absolute unpredictability. His fans get a genuine frisson from the fact that they have no idea what he is going to do next.

The comic, who has also starred on ‘Live at the Apollo’ (BBC1), ‘The Royal Variety Show’ (ITV1), ‘Don’t Say It Bring It’ (Dave), ‘Wild Things’ (Sky), affirms that he enjoys this side of performing just as much as his audience do. “I get a real buzz from the unexpected.

“The pleasure comes from not knowing at all where it’s going to go. I love that thrill. When you jump out of a plane, you can’t get back in it again. That’s what my stand-up is like. If you’re out there and lose your thread, you can’t simply say, ‘Right, I’m off now.’ You just have to keep going.”

What Jason relishes above all is the fact that no two nights are the same. “A lot of stand-ups will do the same routine every night,” observes the comedian, who won the Gold Sony Radio Award for Best Comedy for Radio 2’s The Jason Byrne Show.

“But my brain won’t do that. It is constantly pushing me to improvise and get people from the audience up on stage and to rant and rave about random subjects. My brain has a mind of its own! People come and see the show because they never know what they’ll get. For me, that’s the joy of it.”

Jason is also notable because he attracts such a broad audience. People from all backgrounds respond to him instantly. "It's amazing," the comic beams.

"You don't have to warm the audience up. They don't demand anything of ‎you. You simply have to walk on stage and they start laughing." Such is the immediate connection he has with his fans.

So what does Jason hope that audiences will take away from “You Can Come In, But Don’t Start Anything”? “The bottom line is that it’s a very good night out. After the show, a lot of people come up to me and say, ‘Oh my God, I so needed that!’ We can forget that people could really do with a laugh these days. When they leave the show, I don’t think they’ll have learnt anything. But I hope they’ll be very happy indeed.”

I have no doubt at all that they will be!

Jason Byrne’s new tour, “You Can Come In, But Don’t Start Anything, comes to the Wyvern Theatre in Swindon, on Thursday, October 11 at 8pm. Tickets are £23 from 01793 524481 or visit www.swindontheatres.co.uk