d o o G honest fun
CELEBRITY
Favourite funnyman Ed Byrne is back on the road with his hilarious new stand-up show If I’m Honest. He talks to Shire ahead of visits to the patch in April and June.
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self-deprecation to unexpected extremes. ward-winning comedian Ed Byrne “I do genuinely annoy myself,” he has 25 years of stand-up and television concedes. “That thing about your children experience under his belt, on stage and screen being a reflection of you – it gives you the and as a regular on Mock the Week and The opportunity to build something out of Graham Norton Show. He has also presented the best of yourself, only for you to then see his own shows such as Dara & Ed’s Great Big Adventure and its follow-up, Dara & Ed’s flashes of the worst of yourself in them. It’s Road to Mandalay, and as a semi-professional a wake-up call about your own behaviour.” hill-walker he brought a refreshing warmth Mid-life crises to BBC2’s recent hit The Pilgrimage. But the Irishman is still best-known and If I’m Honest brilliantly elucidates the appreciated for his stand-up performances. frustrations of middle age – and the show His new show If I’m Honest uses his own lives up to its title. “I’m bored looking for life experience to dig ever deeper into a things,” Ed says. “I’m bored of trying to find father’s sense of responsibility, what it stuff, because I can never find it and it is means to be a man in 2022, and whether entirely my fault. Nobody’s hiding my stuff he possesses any qualities whatsoever that from me. Although my wife did actually are worth passing on to his two sons. move my passport on one occasion.” Ed litters his laughs with commentary on He insists that, while the show might have politics, rights and hot topics – but never mordant and occasionally morbid aspects, it’s too much to put also not without its people off coming quietly triumphant along for a giggle. “I’m bored looking for things, moments. “I thought He says: “I did stuff I was being quite I’m bored of trying to find about Trump and the upbeat talking about Pizzagate right-wing stuff, because I can never find the small victories,” conspiracy and a he says. “You know, it and it is entirely my fault” finding positivity couple of reviewers said, ‘Oh, I would in being able to have liked to watch spot when a cramp is about to happen in your leg and dealing a whole show of this.’ And I think, ‘Well, with it before it does. I was happy with you might have, but the average person who myself about that. You see comics who are comes to see me would not like to see that.” my age and older but are still retaining a I like to make a point or get something level of ‘cool’ and drawing a young crowd. off my chest, or perhaps I’m talking about I can’t deny I’m quite envious of that. But something that’s been on my mind, but there’s also something very satisfying about the majority of stuff is just to get laughs.” your audience growing old with you.” Making a point Since the pandemic hit and live comedy “People who come to see me are not political as we know it temporarily ceased, Ed has activists necessarily, they’re regular folk. If done a few socially-distanced gigs as well as you can make a point to them, in between some on Zoom, but he cannot wait to get talking about your struggles with ageing back on the road properly. It will have been or discussing your hernia operation or 18 months since he last performed on tour. whatever, you can toss in something that “I’ll have to see what still works and what does give people pause as regards to how doesn’t. I’ve missed doing stand-up the most men should share the household chores.” during lockdown. No one told me: ‘You’re Ed, who broke through to fame in the not going to be touring for 18 months,’ mid-1990s when ‘New Lad’ became a or I would have planned it better.” genuine cultural phenomenon, reckons Ed will be at Newtown’s Theatr Hafren on that if the times have changed, he has 23rd April, Crewe Lyceum on 16th June, changed with them. The new material Bangor’s Theatr Bryn Terfel on 17th June also takes his natural tendency towards and Oakengates, Telford on 23rd June.
March/April 2022 | SHIRE MAGAZINE 51
