The King Is Ed

Woody Allen once said that if he was ever reincarnated, he'd like to come back as Warren Beatty's fingertips. He'd probably get just as much joy from Ed Byrne's. Young, urbane, slick, highly confident, and a real charmer, the raffish twentysomething from Swords is fast becoming one of the most sought after and swooned over comedians around.
Byrne's own sexual escapades and complicated romantic trysts provide the basis for much of his material; his razor-sharp observations on the dirty war of the sexes appeal to both sides, as he skilfully negotiates the no-man's-land between them.
The London-based comedian is currently on an 80-date tour of the UK and is adored by every TV chat show host, from Conan O'Brien to Des O'Connor. Hoot Press grabbed a few words with the comedian in advance of his headline gig this coming weekend at the Olympia, as part of the Murphy's Ungagged Festival in Dublin. Given his preoccupation with the foibles of the fairer sex, does he ever get women coming up to him on the street to vent their spleen?
"It's very rare," says Byrne. "Women can take a joke. The stuff that I do is not overly misogynistic or sexist, it's just a bit ladsy, really. I do stuff where I take the piss out of blokes as well. And I've spent so much time taking the piss out of myself . . . and loads of other targets too: children, old people, boy bands . . .
"Besides, I can really only look at relationships from a male point of view, seeing as that's what I am. It sounds a bit wussy to do that 'oh, girls, aren't men awful?' routine. It just doesn't sound real. And anyway, there's plenty of women doing stuff about how awful men are. For years, it's been that thing about how men can't find the clitoris. The clitoris is easy to find. Easy."
Byrne was most recently seen on Irish TV screens on Network 2's @ last tv, where he re-staged past battles with his girlfriend and then dispensed hard-won wisdom to fellow combatants.
"That really was my girlfriend in that sketch," he confides. "She helps me write a lot of my stuff: she reminds me of things that I've said and that she's said. She knows that it's basically a fictitious girlfriend that I'm talking about in my act. But sometimes when I get particularly moany about relationships, she thinks that maybe it's something that she's done; that I'm having a go at her. A lot of the stuff that I do - especially the stuff that I did on the recent @ last tv sketch - was actually written about my previous girlfriend."
So your current girlfriend was acting out the part of her predecessor?
"Yeah! I never really looked at it that way," says Byrne, suddenly alarmed at the thought. "I certainly hope that Sue, now, doesn't read this article and say, (adopts offended tone) 'I'm just acting out scenes from your previous relationship. What fantasy are you trying to fulfil, Edward?'."
But while Byrne may be more of a New Lad than a New Man, he says that he has no plans to take out a year's subscription to Loaded magazine. Though he's hardly a Cosmo man either.
"There's a magazine called Later, which is much funnier, far more intelligent than Loaded. I'm quite fond of that. But my favourite magazine is Stuff. It's like boys' toys. In fact, there's another magazine called Boys' Toys as well. It's got footballs, surfboards, personal organisers, computers . . . just pages and pages of gadgets. I love that. But that's more boyish than blokey, really. That said, they'll still have a picture of Emma B behind the new laptop, with some gadget covering over her nipples."
And what about football. Is he to be found with his feet up on a Saturday night, washing the curry down with a can of beer and shouting back at Match Of The Day?
"Clueless. That's my least ladsy trait. I have no interest whatsoever in sport, in general, and football in particular."
They say it's terribly trendy to be Irish in London these days. How does Byrne feel about John Bull's new breed of Hibernophiles?
"Wales has become even trendier, now," he declares, astonishing even himself. "Wales is the new Ireland! It's true. Ever since Rhys Ifans said, (affects Welsh accent) 'you danced?, feck!' in Notting Hill, that's it. Wales is now dead cool; Ireland has had its day, it seems. We're so ten minutes ago.
"But I don't think people pigeonhole Irish comedians in the way they used to. We're not being looked upon as a separate breed, which was what it was like. You'd always get labelled 'Irish comedian' and it always annoyed me. Obviously, I'm not ashamed of being Irish but I just hate being referred to as 'Irish comedian'; I'd rather be referred to as just 'comedian'. I don't talk about being Irish any more than I talk about being young or being skinny or any other trait."
Byrne has done almost as many world tours as Status Quo - and there's another one pencilled in for next year. Does he find Irish audiences any different from those elsewhere?
"Sometimes, yeah," he says. "I was doing a joke there for a while about the fact that I was travelling around the world - Australia, New Zealand, America - apologising for Riverdance. And so I was doing this joke in Belfast. I was about half way through, saying 'I've been all around the world - America, Australia, New Zealand . . .' when someone in the audience goes (adopts heavily sarcastic tone), 'aah, you're great'. Admittedly, that only happens when you go home.
"That would be the downside but the upside is that Irish people nowadays, compared to five years ago, are more receptive to going to see an Irish comedian. Ireland used to have the attitude that if it was Irish, it couldn't be any good. And Britain - especially the Edinburgh Festival - cottoned on to the idea that if it was Irish, it was worth going to see. . . even if they'd never heard of you. Being an Irish comedian almost gave you an instant seal of approval at the Edinburgh Fringe. And now, it's beginning to go that way in Dublin. Which is nice." n
* Ed Byrne plays the Olympia Theatre, Dublin on Sunday 14th November at 8pm with special guest, Eddie Bannon, as part of the Murphy's Ungagged Comedy Festival.