The last time Ed Byrne played in Dublin’s Gaiety theatre he enchanted his audience with a tale of the battle of the sexes loosely centered around a night at the opera. This time around it’s a distinctly more acerbic, if less hirsute, Ed who impresses the Olympia crowd with relationship stories, travel anecdotes, accounts of orgasm-faking girlfriends (“It’s cool,” he deadpans, “I mean, I ask her to do it...”) and a lot more.

The crowd lap it up and Byrne revels in the applause. It’s clear that he’s taken to his A-grade status like the natural he is and indeed the segments of the set where he indulges his no-more-Mr Nice Guy persona are among the funniest in the show.

“Ah, you noticed,” he says archly. “That’s true, and it’s because I’ve been doing a lot of TV recently and stand-up gives me the opportunity to do whatever I like. There’s no-one to tell you what to do or what not to do. So I’m relishing it, stuff like the Barrymore gear and the Madonna stuff. And I swear a lot more.”

The current tour takes in over a hundred dates and returns to these shores in the New Year before jetting off to Australia, New Zealand and the Far East. It’s quite an undertaking for a man who hasn’t toured in several years.

“Yes, but it pays the bills,” he points out, “and it increases your profile. And I like doing stand-up. I’m good at it. Having done a bit of sit-com work and some presenting work on TV I find I just enjoy the stand-up more. Just For Laughs is an exception in that the show needed a comedian who knew how the thing worked… I pretty much view the TV work as exposure which might make people come along to see the live show.”

Before we talk about the current series how does he feel in retrospect about the critically-crucified The Cassidys?

“I personally thought the scripts were good,” he remembers. “And it felt good as we worked on it for all those weeks. But you become perhaps too close to it. When it hit the screen it just didn’t work. In stand-up when you write a joke you say it live and you know immediately if it works, and if it doesn’t you drop it. You can’t do that in TV. But I’ve been bitten twice now… Of course the success of Batchelor’s Walk, and it was deserved success, meant that the critics could take the gloves off for The Cassidys.”

As a veteran of the Montreal Comedy festival himself did he enjoy the Just For Laughs series?

“It was great that the Irish contingent (Deirdre O’Kane, Colin Murphy, Dara O’Brian and Ed himself) did so well over there,” he considers. “Dara got bumped up to the gala night which is a real boost and that hadn’t happened to anyone there in a couple of years. I should probably point out that the porn magazine I pulled out of Dara’s bedside table wasn’t his. Somebody planted it, it wasn’t even his room.

“But the series looks at some of the comedians from different countries, the UK, USA, Canada and elsewhere, and there’s also a show about women comics. It gives you a flavour of what the festival is about. ”

As someone who has gigged widely outside Ireland does he believe that comic tastes vary from country to country?

“To an extent that’s true,” he confirms, “And I’ll give you an example. I used to do a bit that pointed out the difference between a guy’s relationship with his mates and a girl’s with hers. Like when you introduce your girlfriend to your mates and they all go, ‘Jayzus what’s a girl like you doing going out with that eejit?’ Yet when you meet your girlfriend’s mates they’ll tell you how great she is and how you’d better look after her and stuff. Now I did that routine in the US and it never worked. Finally a woman said to me, ‘It’s not really like that here, men tend to have a bit more camaraderie and women tend to be a bit bitchier’ and I thought, ‘Aha, that’s it then’.

“There are other slight differences. You can’t buy soluble Disprin over there because it’s too easy to OD on. Which would explain the huge amount of Disprin related deaths we have here… I’m planning to do a show in the US about my own experiences travelling in that country which should be fun. ”

Which of the comedians in the current Just For Laughs series impressed him?

“I was really impressed by Denis Leary,” he remembers. “He’s been doing it for so long and also doing other things but he’s still a master. Also from the US is Dave Attell, another guy I’d watch again, just a naturally funny guy. And the Canadian Sean Cullen is really good.”

With just one episode of the series devoted to female talent would he agree that comedy is still mainly a boy’s game?

“Well, we had Deirdre as well remember, but I understand what you mean. It’s predominantly guys. You see, a sense of humour in a woman isn’t as valued by society. What I mean is that women value a sense of humour in a man much more than men do in a woman. The same is true of men and other men though. You’ll hear someone say, ‘Your man’s an awful prick but he’s funny…’ Women don’t say, ‘I know she’s a bitch but isn’t she hilarious…’ And women like men who make them laugh, which is fucking great if you’re a stand-up comedian, to be honest.

“But I don’t think that women try to avoid bullying at school, for example, by being funny. It’s not that women can’t be funny, I know some piss funny women, but society doesn’t encourage women in general to develop their funny-bone in the way that men are.”

The three programmes remaining in the series, which broadcasts on RTE Network 2 on Monday at 10pm, include the women’s episode with Joan Rivers among the acts, the American selection including Dave Attell and the rest of the world round up. Ed Byrne returns to Ireland in late January 2003 when he takes his live show to Kilarney NEC (29), Limerick UCL (30) and Sligo’s Hawkswell Theatre (31), visiting Galway’s Black Box theatre on February 1 and The Royal Theatre, Castlebar on the following night.