Contrasting working and middle class life
SPOILER alert is a much used phrase, usually in the context of a warning prior to revealing a cruical fact, event or ending.
In the world of comedian Ed Byrne, it is an alert to the fact that we are all spoiled.
He contrasts his own working class upbringing when ‘a night out was sitting in the car outside the pub with a lemonade while your dad got drunk – and then drove you home’ with the pampered life of his own two five and six-year-old sons, Magnus and Cosmo, who ‘choose tagliatelle and pesto for tea’.
Living an English middle class life of giant trampolines in the back garden and trips that ‘cost as much as a good skiing holiday’ to Lapland to see the Santa Claus.
The kids found him underwhelming, saying ‘we saw him in Westmorland Shopping Centre last year’.
In common with other working class boys made good, such as Jason Manford, Ed Byrne mines the rich comedic seam of life as a middle class husband and parent. He bemoans the fact that as an outdoor man he ‘lost the argument’ with his wife and now drives his kids about in a 4x4.
He moves on from his boys to highlight how spoiled he is himself ‘happily married, paid to make travel films with best friend Dara O Briain’ and in a wealth bracket that ‘makes an Aga a viable purchase.’
He decided against it in the end, because he couldn’t understand how you would need an oven that was also your central heating and clothes drier.
Ed Byrne has honed his comedic timing over 25 years in stand-up and elicits almost constant chuckling and many guffaws with material that moves on from his ‘spoiler alert’ to clever insights into what is wrong with the modern world, such as ‘facts have become bespoke’
His personal anecdotes include talking about his passion for hill walking, delivering a run-out of the much publicised story of how he aided a fellow walker in the Cairngorms and reluctantly felt compelled to help.
Ed is a man at ease with himself, his material and his audience, with no need to be too slick or polished.
Support act, Canadian, Paul Myrehaug, gives Ed a run for his money with his hard-hitting set covering topics such as testicular cancer scares and his playful use of wilful mispronunciations that get him out of things with his French wife.
With 15 years on the road under his belt, he has a stage mastery and presence that far exceeds the usual support act.