FUCK OFF, Brendon, I m trying to do me Hot Press interview! . . . What? . . . Yeah, I know it sounds like an airing cupboard, but it s the Irish equivalent of the NME, now will you please please fuck off!
Shouting over the raucous laughter in the background, Ed Byrne explains that he s at a friend s house in London, while in the midst of rehearsals for a play he s performing during the upcoming Edinburgh Festival. The Brendon in question is Brendon Burns, an Australian stand-up comedian with whom Ed shared a flat at the Scottish capital. The play in question is The Act, and is about two comedians sharing a flat at . . . you ve guessed it, the Edinburgh Festival. Isn t this taking the write about what you know adage just a little bit too literally?
Yeah, maybe it is, Ed chuckles. I remember last year at the Festival when we shared a flat, we both thought Wow, what wacky punsters we are, let s turn this into a play .
At first it was going to be a dialogue between Brendon and myself, he adds, just being funny at each other, but that just didn t seem to be wacky enough, y know, so we ve actually got a plot now. We ve got ourselves this director, a woman, and she s going Oh, you ve got to have scenes and things , and all this other actor shite. So we ve decided to throw some in, just to appease her.
While theatrical purists would baulk at such a philistine attitude, it would be naive to let Byrne s refreshingly novel approach to the stage blind one to his obvious talent. An instantly likeable chap, the young Dubliner is an accomplished and ambitious stand-up who is already a household name Down Under, and is fast becoming one of the English circuit s heavyweights.
As is often the case with Ireland s more successful gag merchants, however, he is virtually unknown on his native turf. Does this anonymity upset him?
Yeah, that s about the size of it, he muses laconically. It doesn t bother me that I m not all that well known in Ireland, although my profile at home has risen because of the Kilkenny Festival, and the series of The Comedy Store that was shown on RTE. I think I m going to do The Late Late Show as well, so that should sort out any problems of anonymity I might have. I ve been asked to do it, so I ll probably fit it in when I m home for my sister s wedding in a few months.
The Late Late Show? Surely Ed can t be that desperate?
Fuck off! Why are you describing it like something you ve scraped of the sole of your shoe? he protests. Everybody knows that you ve made it when you ve done The Late Late Show. At the moment there s all these aunties, and friends of my mum in Ireland who re going Oh, I hear that Jill s young fella is doing a bit of that comedy stuff . Once I ve been on with Uncle Gaybo, though, it ll be Oh, I see that Jill s son Ed is a comedian .
SITCOM PILOT
Ed is no stranger to the small screen; as well as his occasional appearances on The Comedy Store, he is currently a reporter for The Live 6 Show on Sky 1, and is in the enviable position of being paid large sums of cash for doing bugger all . . . with Page 3 model Melinda Messenger. So, what s the fair Melinda like?
Yeah, I ve met her and she was all over me, he reveals. It was a real pain in the hole. Ah no, she s lovely. She s actually even better looking in real life than she is in the papers, except that she doesn t hold on to her breasts the whole time like she does when she s posing for photos.
And what does he think of the show in general?
I think it s an absolutely fantastic piece of cutting-edge TV journalism. What do you think I think of it? They pay me money! he guffaws.
The Scottish Play will not be Ed s only foray onto the stage at Edinburgh. He s also performing his own stand-up show, Psychobabble, for the Festival s duration. Indeed, in recent times, he has been mentioned by several comics as a possible contender for the Perrier Award won last year by Dylan Moran. Has he cleared that space on the mantlepiece yet?
Ach, you know, it s always nice to be appreciated, he states. But I got really annoyed at the festival last year, even though it went really well. I went there with several priorities, the top one being to get good reviews, and then to get seen by people in order to get other gigs. The next was to shag groupies and have drinks with people from all over the world that I hadn t seen for ages.
The Perrier was very low down that list. So I managed to achieve all the other things, y know, lots of shags, lots of exposure, lots of drinks. However, because I didn t win any awards I was made to feel that I was a failure.
I think that between doing a play, and a one-man show this year, it ll open a lot of doors. That s really what I m looking forward to. I mean, myself and Brendon, having written a play, have essentially written a sitcom pilot, and at the very least we d hope to get picked up for a few more comedy acting roles. That s my main concern this year.
This comedy lark truly is a serious business! n