Byrning No Bridges

Here's how one can tell Ed Byrne is pretty good at this comedy thing: at any point in the conversation, he can steer it in a direction that results in him recounting a story, an anecdote or even a clever one-liner and you chuckling like mad. What's more, he does it so subtly and cleverly you don't even realise you're being amused until the laughs simply won't stop. And Australian audiences will get the chance to experience this for themselves soon when the Irish stand-up comedian comes to Sydney and Melbourne on what he calls “a tantalisingly brief trip”.

“I'm in and I'm out,” he admits. “I haven't been there in six years or so. But I'm just coming off three months of paternity leave. I have two sons now, one nearly two years old and one three-and-a-half months. Normally if I was coming to Australia I'd bring my wife and it'd be an extended working holiday, but taking two kids on a plane at that age is just mad, so I'm going on my own.”

Byrne also admits that he's a little concerned that he may have slipped the minds of Australian audiences. “It's a really grand thing sometimes, meeting people who already know who you are and find you funny,” he says. “They laugh at you just being there, which is quite nice, really. You can just coast. They're laughing at the memory of how funny you are, which is pretty sweet. But you do find that if people know who you are, it makes complaining about things a lot harder. You can't really do it. Things have to go very badly or you have to be very poorly treated by a, say, a hotel before you can bring yourself to complain. I was at the end of my tether recently dealing with the gas company, yelling that I'd had to contact them four times about the problems I was having, and when they asked my name and I told them I heard 'Oh, Ed Byrne the comedian? You're very funny'. And I couldn't be angry anymore!”

Still, it's likely that regular appearances on talk shows like The Graham Norton Show will probably help jog the memories of a few folks. After all, the last time he appeared on that program he memorably accused Johnny Depp of copying his personal style. “I did have a poke at him for stealing my look,” he recalls with a smile. “The guests that night were me, Ricky Gervais, Carey Mulligan and Johnny Depp, and after the show Ricky and I were out the back, talking with Johnny Depp, who was smoking a cigarette. I used to smoke but don't anymore and Ricky doesn't smoke, and I always think it's a very telling indicator of where you are in the social pecking order if you're outside because someone else is smoking. You are lower on the pecking order. If you're at a bar and you find yourself outside with the people who smoke, especially if the weather's bad, then you are not the alpha male in that group. If you were higher up, the smokers would stay inside with you! Me and Ricky Gervais, we were out the back.” Byrne is hardly a beta male these days, though. Indeed, he's something of a grown-up, as his Australian shows will demonstrate – in addition to material from previous shows Different Class and Crowd Pleaser (in which he “came out as a nerd”), he's also showing off a bit of his new show, which has the working title of Roaring Forties. And why that title, Ed? “Because I'm in my forties now.” Naturally.