ED BYRNE | INTERVIEW
Carl Marsh speaks to Ed Byrne about leaving 21st century parenting methods, ordering elderflower pesto and leaving his kids in the car.
Having been on the comedy scene for over 20 years, Ed Byrne has made many journeys, but one journey in particular that his regular touring and TV work has seen take is his transition from working-class lad to middle-class rural-dweller. Does he still deal with these themes in his current tour?
“Very much so on the current tour, although I hadn’t intended but it’s very much a theme that has come back again. It’s now more to do with how it’s manifested itself into how middle-class my children are! There is a theme throughout the show of how spoilt we all are and how I am contributing to it such as when I hear my children ordering elderflower cordial or pesto, you know, stuff that I was not aware of until I was in my 20s!”
Considering he’s taking the piss out of 21st century parenting methods, it feels right to ask; isn’t he a 21st century parent himself? “One of the lines in the show, and I don’t hold any grudges against my dad, and I enjoy spending time with my kids but… when I look at the amount of parenting I’m expected to do versus the amount of parenting that I myself received, I feel a bit fucking shortchanged!”.
Perhaps he wished we could go back to the old-school methods of parenting then, to which he laughingly responded: “I don’t think I would leave my kids sitting in a car outside a pub drinking lemonade and eating crisps but I do feel like bringing it up whenever my own children ‘demand’ I do something else as if I work for them!”
Considering how political correctness is a hot issue so often these days in the comedy world, what’s Ed’s take on comedians who run riot with non-PC material? “Sometimes you have to be mindful but I like to make a joke and be able to offend it to it’s very core so that if someone says to me that they were offended by that, I like to be able to logically explain why what I was saying wasn’t offensive. I like to think that my stuff stands up to that sort of scrutiny. I did get some grief from one guy on Twitter because he had seen my routine on Live at the Apollo about my wedding and that he thought it was homophobic because it did not take into account that men could marry men. I told him that when I wrote it and when the show was recorded, you couldn’t! Therefore a marriage at the time was between a man and a woman, and I am absolutely in favour of that having been changed but the fact that I didn’t go back in time and retroactively change my routine to suit the change in the law that was to come in the future!!! You can’t write your comedy in the hope that it will never offend anybody as some people will always find some sort of fault.”
Known for his standup comedy, we touched upon whether he had further ambitions elsewhere; “I do wish to create something like a novel or a screenplay or a sitcom pilot.” Does he mean comedy or something serious? “One or the other. I think that everyone that works in the creative industries harbours a desire to take a step sideways just for the change of pace. I keep meaning to do it and then I’ve got to write the next tour, and all those TV boxsets aren’t going to watch themselves! Yet once you’ve got it in your head that you are going to write a TV show, it makes every TV show you watch ‘Research!’ which is so much better than ‘You sir, you sir may be a couch potato but I, I am researching my future project’.”
These days, is it rare for a new comedian to really impress Ed Byrne now he’s been in it for so long? “I did feel slightly worried, and outdated, and obsolete after MC’ing at a comedy event recently in Leicester. All I can say is that the future of comedy is in rude health, and the future of comedy is going to be fine!”
Ed Byrne: Spoiler Alert, St. David’s Hall, Cardiff, Fri 9 Mar. Tickets: £25.50. Info: 029 2087 8444 / www.stdavidshall.co.uk