Byrne baby Byrne

When Hoot Press contacts Ed Byrne in Edinburgh, the Dublin stand-up sounds decidedly the worse for wear. His hoarse croak indicates that he has been partaking in the copious partying that is as much a part of the festival experience as performing itself. “I’m not in great voice,” he acknowledges. “It’s just festival stress, basically. Thankfully, the actual performing end of things has been going great. The shows have all been sold-out, the audiences have been laughing, and there has been much drinking and carousing.

“Although reviews have been mixed, it has to be said; some very good ones, some not so good ones. But I think that’s to be expected at this stage.”
Does Ed take any notice of poor reviews at this stage of his career?
“Well, I certainly say that I don’t,” he replies, at which point both himself and his interviewer crack up laughing.
Due to perform at the Olympia later this month as part of the Bulmers International Comedy Festival, Byrne crossed paths with Hoot Press this time last year during his stint performing in the acclaimed play Kings Of The Road at The Ambassador Theatre. How has Ed spent the intervening twelve months?
“Just trying to forget about that stint in Kings Of The Road really,” he groans. “It was terrible, it died a death in Dublin. The Ambassador is not a venue to stage a play, and that play was not very good. It’s one thing if you do a shit sitcom, which I’ve done, and then everyone slags it off. At least in that scenario it’s done, it’s in the can, you can say, ‘People just weren’t into it’, and move onto the next thing. But when you’re doing a play, and it’s not going well, and everyone’s slagging it off in the press, and then you’ve got to go out and do it again, that’s a pain in the arse.
“It’s actually one of the reasons why I’m back doing stand-up again, because it doesn’t matter what people say about it; the audience likes it, I like it, and I enjoy doing it.”
At the time, Byrne expressed serious interest in moving further into the realm of acting. Did the Kings of The Road experience cause him to reconsider those ambitions?
“No, not at all,” responds Ed. “In fact, I’ve just done a movie which is showing tonight here in Edinburgh as part of the Fringe festival, and it’s quite good. It’s quite low-budget, so the chances of it getting a cinema release are pretty low. It was a much more enjoyable experience, myself and Ralf Little are in it, and it’s just a nice, well-crafted little independent movie that I’m very pleased with.
“It’s about a guy with obsessive compulsive disorder, who’s obsessed with this Czech porn model called Veronika Zemanova. She’s quite a woman, she’s been on the cover of Bizarre a few times and stuff like that. The film itself is called Zemanova-load. The story is just about this guy and his strange compulsions, and his attempts to find love. I play the guy with OCD, and Ralf Little is my best mate. I think it’s a pretty novel take on the romantic comedy genre.”
Will Ed be checking out Ricky Gervais when The Office star comes to Dublin for the Bulmer’s Festival?
“I don’t know if the schedule will allow it, cos I’ll just be in Dublin for the one night, doing my own show. But I bumped into him here in Edinburgh, he was doing one night here. For the first week of the Festival I was co-hosting the Festival show on Forth FM, the local radio station here in Edinburgh. So Ricky Gervais came on and we interviewed him, and it was a good laugh. He was full of tales of showbiz debauchery and the like.”
Ed must be getting quite handy at the interviewing lark at this stage, bearing in mind his position as resident host of Network 2’s Montreal showcase, Just For Laughs.
“Yeah, I’ve been on both sides of the microphone a few times,” he says. “I think I actually prefer being interviewed these days, cos the thing about Just For Laughs is that although I know the majority of the comics quite well, some of them I don’t know, and so you can only ask, “So…are you enjoying the festival?” so many times. I mean, when you’re interviewing ten comics a day, it does tend to get slightly repetitive.”
Will Ed be performing a new set for his Bulmer’s date?
“Yeah, most of it will be new for an Irish audience. I did snippets of it at Cat Laughs earlier this year, but the Dublin show will be the first time I’ve done it in its entirety. The show has been written over the course of the last eight months, and most of it is taking up with slagging off various bits and pieces.
“About half the show is taken up with talking about my ex-girlfriend , who I slag off quite mercilessly. It’s fun to do; the stage as a mode of therapy cannot be beaten. As Peter Cook used to say, it’s good to get this stuff off your chest, and onto other people’s.”