Ed Byrne

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Ed Byrne: A comedian in a different class
Ed Byrne tells GAVIN ALLEN about his rise, fall and rise again in the sometimes purist world of stand-up
by Gavin Allen,
South Wales Echo
Feb 11 2009

“I’M at the level now that I thought I was at in 2002,” says Ed Byrne, a comedian analytically picking at his own success. The Dublin-born stand-up has been gigging for nearly 15 years. In 1998 he was nominated for the Perrier Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and has subsequently enjoyed six sell-out runs at the comedy jamboree. But just when he seemed set for supersonic flight, the engines stalled.

“I hit a high in around 2000 with the Royal Variety Show and big stand-up gigs like The British Comedy Awards, but then it kind of tailed off,” he says, before outlining a few contributing factors. “But the main thing is, around 2001, I felt like I kind of ran out of things to say.” At that time, Byrne was aiming to boost his profile.

He had confidently upgraded himself to a long tour of 1,200-capacity venues, but unfortunately the idea bombed. “It was soul destroying.” he recalls. “We were selling 300 to 400 tickets a night. I remember thinking to myself ‘you’re not as popular as you think you are’.” Happily, Byrne’s career has recovered. He booked his latest show, Different Class, into Cardiff’s Glee Club last year and it sold out so quickly he was brave enough to book this week’s show at the much bigger St David’s Hall, the kind of 1,200 seater venue he had previously failed to fill.

Byrne, 36, married his publicist Claire Walker last year and his renaissance has been attributed, by interviewers and colleagues, to a new-found maturity – “there is probably some truth to it,” he sighs – but Byrne has also benefited from his acceptance into the world of panel shows, particularly Mock The Week where he’s a regular guest. “It’s been a star-maker for Andy Parsons, Frankie Boyle and Russell Howard and a huge boost to my career,” he says. “It used to be the case that panel shows were a bit of a sell-out, the lowest form of comedy on TV, but now there is so much terrible reality TV, panel shows are that much more acceptable.”

But there was something deeper behind Byrne’s stumble – a snobbishness and puritanism from a minority in the industry and among the public directed at his acceptance of the corporate dollar for an advertising campaign with Carphone Warehouse. “Some comedy people just hate you for it – I got quite lot of hate mail,” he says flatly. “It’s that old Bill Hicks line that says something like, ‘If you use your talents to sell a product you are forcefully ejected from the artistic community’ and some people take his word as gospel. But how did I sell out doing an ad? If Mark Thomas did an advert maybe we’d all feel a little let down. But me? Kate Moss is seen as a British icon but all she does is advertise stuff, like make-up or clothes, yet somehow manages to retain that cool Britannia image. And Stephen Fry does Twining’s and Direct Line Insurance adverts with Paul Merton, but no-one seems to complain about that.”

Although he has subsequently turned down two big offers from McDonalds, the experience hasn’t entirely put him off adverts, but his increased profile means he doesn’t need the money or the hassle brought about by doing them. These days, Ed Byrne is a different class of comedian.

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He's still bitter about the crap he got for the phone ads? Bloody hell, that was years ago!

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Ed Byrne
April 03, 2009
thisisnottingham.co.uk

"THE best comedy comes from a personal angle," declares 36-year-old Ed Byrne, a familiar face on Have I Got News For You, Mock The Week, Never Mind the Buzzcocks and 8 out of 10 Cats.

"If it's real, it makes it so much better. It gives it much more authenticity and has far greater punch. You could be accused of self-indulgence, but my experience has been that audiences really like it when you reveal something of yourself on stage. It's not funny unless they believe it. For instance, one section of (new show) Different Class that goes down very well is where I talk about my status. I discuss the difficulty of neither being massively famous nor totally obscure and how strange it is simply to be known as 'that bloke'. The audience really enjoy the feeling of getting to know me better."

Part of the show, which sold out its month-long last year's Edinburgh Fringe, concerns his recent wedding. He jokes, for example, that, "the best thing is that since I've been married, I haven't had to plan a fucking wedding!" And wants to congratulate the man who invented the tradition that the groom should never see his bride's dress before The Big Day.

"I want to shake his hand for getting us out of that particular shopping expedition. 'Honey, nothing would give me greater pleasure than watching you try on an infinity of wedding dresses!'" He adds: "I'm not slagging off my wife, I'm slagging off the wedding industry. Everyone can relate to the minor frustrations that any wedding involves, such as arguing about stuff that you don't really care about."

The comic also proffers some very strong material on that perennial obsession: the class system. "Pheasant is posh," he muses at one point, "even if you eat it with Alphabetti Spaghetti!" The stand-up observes that, "we're all fascinated by the subject of class, and there's a lot of comic mileage in it. It's a leitmotif that runs through the show. The funny thing is, when I've been asking the audience 'who would call themselves middle class?', only one brave soul usually puts his hand up." He adds: "I've been reliably informed that this is my best show yet. It's partly down to experience. More than anything, though, as mushy as it sounds, it's down to the love of a good woman. That really helps my comedy because it means I'm freer to focus on it.

"In 2004, a lot of my show was centred on my bitterness about a previous girlfriend. It was cathartic, but at the same time it wasn't very fair, as she wasn't there to stand up for herself. That style didn't suit me. I think what I'm doing now suits me much better. I'm now leading a life that lends itself much better to comedy. I'm doing lovely things like getting married and reporting on that and audiences seem to warm to it."

Never more than a minute or two away from the next joke, Ed concludes with a mischievous grin that, "of course, if my wife ever left me, I'd end up doing the divorce show, and it's quite possible that wouldn't go down very well at all."

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Ed Byrne - Calling Time On Student Bars
Ed Byrne goes back to Glasgow where he went to university to look at how the Student Unions are getting along

download 25mb mp3

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