Diminutive and feisty Dublin-born comedian Ed Byrne is back! The enforced lockdowns might have stolen some of his contemporary jokes from him, but they haven't dulled his sense of fun, and his manic, punchy, deliberately slightly contentious repartee. Even saying that he will answer-back to his own comments and even heckle himself - which he did several times, and had the audience bent double laughing.
Byrne is 49 (something he seemed to keep repeating throughout the evening, as if by saying it many times it might knock a little off his age by the end (wishful thinking perhaps!), and is the father of two preteen boys. The vast majority of this evening's routine was therefore based around parenthood, parenting, and coping during the lockdowns. But for me the pork curry joke was the highlight of the evening.
Byrne commands the stage by prancing up and down occasionally, physicalising his routines as he goes. He is energetic, manic, and non-stop. Although his improvised rock star topless finale was somewhat eclipsed this evening by an audience member walking across the front of the stage also taking his shirt off!
His audience interaction and ad libs this evening have been crafted through the last 28 years of his professional life, and so were prescient and funny; whilst his actual gig material was, if I'm honest, not the best I've seen from Byrne, he was still able to pack a punch and have the audience in stiches.
A pleasure to spend a couple of hours in the company of a very chatty, approachable comedian who isn't afraid of hitting the nail fair and square on the head.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 13.11.21
on - 13.11.21
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