Jason Byrne is no newcomer to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. This year he has returned to interact with his un-failingly mad audiences, recap the latest mad antics his son has been up to and reiterate, just in case we missed it last time, how mad his wife (and all women) are. Seeing a pattern here? Byrne thinks the world is mad, the Irish are mad, and is more than happy to admit he’s a bit mad, too.

Byrne’s show is an hour, bouncing between rehearsed material, which manages to look as if it is something that has only just occurred to him (regardless of the props he pulls out of a box), and interaction with an audience, which never fails to seems as if it’s been planted (but who could possibly concoct such absurd things for an audience to say and do?). With energy that exhausts just from looking on, Byrne delivers stand-up which few are able to match. Standard topics, material most people can relate to and the odd curveball are delivered with a finesse that most comics just don’t have. It’s traditional stand-up, dispensed with more exuberance and joy than you will see on most other stages.

Perhaps it’s his almost frenetic pace, perhaps that unique ability to deliver material, which feels as fresh for him as the audience. However he does it, there is no doubt that Byrne is selling out for a reason.