Comedian Ed Byrne turns family tragedy into new one-man show

“It’s something of a departure, and I’m slightly worried about that,” he concedes. “I’ve never really had the desire to write a show that had an overly serious element to it. I got a lot of five-star reviews on the last show, but some four-star ones that opined, ‘well it’s funny, but that’s all it is…’ As if that’s not enough these days.

“Frankly, just being funny is a furrow I’ve been happy to occupy. But this new show features some heart-wrenching, soul-bearing stuff.”

Ed Byrne     (Picture: Rosalyn Gaunt)For Tragedy Plus Time, Ed bravely ventures into the world of grief and loss, a decision prompted by the death of his younger brother Paul, aged just 44, in February 2022. Comedy that takes death as its cue is not unprecedented, but it’s a path that takes considerable creative courage to explore.

“I was in two minds about whether to do a show of this nature,” Ed explained. “Then I decided this was the subject I was going to tackle but I wasn’t quite sure how to go about it. But once I started down that road, that was it… Then my main worry was, how funny is it going to be and is it going to work?

“The first time I performed it,” he continues, “it lasted more than an hour. That surprised me, but it was too long, so I had to decide whether to cut funny jokes or material that’s meaningful. That kind of decision was new to me, and what’s really annoying is that the one person I would have asked for advice on that is the guy the show’s about.

“It’s like when you get dumped by someone and you’re heartbroken. The one person you’d usually want to talk to about it is the very person who dumped you.

“I’ve spoken to people who worked with Paul, who was a comedy director, and they’ve said that his thing was, ‘you can be as emotional as you like and as serious as you like, but there has to be a joke’. So the idea of saying something purely for the emotional gut punch was off the table.”

Nor is Tragedy Plus Time unrelenting - it takes the most difficult of subject matter and encourages the audience to laugh in its face in a way they would otherwise simply never do. Ed has also deliberately ignored a linear narrative structure in favour of an approach that mirrors the unpredictable nature of grief itself.

“Obviously I don’t want the whole thing to be an onslaught,” he says. “That’s partly because of the digressions, and that’s why they’re there. But they also illustrate how grief works in that you can still have a good time, you can still be happy, you can still have a laugh about other things and be frivolous. But grief is always there waiting for you when you’re done with being silly.

Ed candidly admits that mining his family’s bereavement for comedic effect would challenge his performing skills and emotions in a unique way. Is this a nightly catharsis for the Irish comedian?

“Death is universal. We will all lose someone. So the best thing to do is laugh at it,” he says. “Although I was aware, when I was first writing and performing this new show, that there was a danger I might lose it onstage. I did a work-in-progress at the Museum of Comedy and there was an audible crack in my voice. On the third performance I did actually cry on stage. But I don’t want it to be the sort of thing where I rip my heart out and stamp on it for the audience’s delectation. I’ve been able to throttle back my emotions and keep them in check.”

Ed Byrne (Picture: Rosalyn Gaunt)What of the origins of the concept that comedy is Tragedy Plus Time? It’s widely credited to American writer, humourist and quote machine Mark Twain, as many of these things are. Having researched it, Ed says there’s no conclusive proof that he coined it. Twain’s contribution to the arts might have benefitted from an audio/visual dimension, if such a thing had existed in the 1880s, but it’s something Ed has avoided. Until now.

“There are WhatsApp messages from Paul that I wanted to share and I could have just read them out. But that wouldn’t have the same resonance, and you have to see them to fully appreciate the context. Then there’s a video of a weird guy who produces celebrity obituaries…to be honest, I’m still tinkering with the audio/visual aspect, so there may well be more of that in the show. It’s a supplementary element, though, it’s not integral. I don’t want anyone to worry unduly about the introduction of technology to the proceedings.”

Tragedy Plus Time isn’t Ed Byrne deconstructing comedy or going meta. That’s not what he does. Nonetheless, this is a satisfyingly left-field move from one of the undeniable masters of comedy. It is as moving as it is funny, and vice versa.

“Is it OK to talk about this stuff? I’d say this. Every night hundreds of people who didn’t know who Paul Byrne was will leave the theatre knowing who Paul Byrne was,” he said. “I’m happy with that, and I think I give a good account of him on stage. I wouldn’t say he’s up there with me every night, but he’s there every time I think about the show, and I’ve got to make sure I do right by him.

“I briefly entertained a notion of writing a one-man play, with me sitting and talking to him towards the end of his life. But you know, I’m a stand-up comic. It’s what I do. I said to the audience in one of the early previews, ‘yes, it is sad. But don’t worry because the show is funny. Because believe it or not, I’m actually quite good at this’.”

Ed Byrne is at The Lowry, Salford Quays, tonight; the Lowther Pavilion, Lytham on Sunday and Colne Muni on Saturday, December 7