Men’s rights activists are not speaking up for men, it’s about hating women
COMEDIAN ED BYRNE IS TAKING AN HONEST LOOK AT LIFE AND ASKING IF HE HAS ANY TRAITS WORTH PASSING ON TO HIS SONS. MARION McMULLEN DISCOVERS WHY FATHERHOOD IS A LAUGHING MATTER FOR HIM
How have your sons Cosmo and Magnus inspired your new comedy tour To Be Honest...? THE thing of your children being a reflection of you gives you an opportunity to build something out of the best of yourself – only for you to then see flashes of the worst of yourself in them. It’s a wake-up call about your own behaviour.
You’re 47 now. Do you worry about getting older?
YOU see comics who are my age and older but are still retaining a level of ‘cool’ and drawing a young crowd. I can’t deny that I’m quite envious of that, but there’s also something very satisfying about your audience growing old with you.
What’s the most frustrating thing about middle age?
I’M BORED looking for things. I’m bored of trying to find stuff because I can never find it, and it is entirely my fault.
Nobody’s hiding my stuff from me. Although my wife did actually move my passport on one occasion.
It’s also not without its quietly triumphant moments. I thought I was being quite upbeat talking about the small victories. You know, finding positivity in being able to spot when a cramp was about to happen in your leg and dealing with it before it does. I was very happy with myself about that.
You’re a TV regular having appeared on everything from QI to Mock The Week and Have I Got News For You, but are you hard on yourself when it comes to your live shows? SELF-AGGRANDISING humour is a lot harder to pull off than self-deprecating humour.
A lot of people get really annoyed when Ricky Gervais is self-congratulatory. I always find it very funny when he accepts awards and does so in the most big-headed way possible.
I think it’s a trickier type of humour to pull off, talking yourself up in that way. So no, I don’t think I’m being massively hard on myself.
The fact is, when you’re the bloke who is standing on the stage with the microphone, commanding an audience’s attention, you’re in a very elevated position anyway.
Can it be tricky getting the balance right in a live show?
I DID stuff about Trump and the Pizzagate right wing conspiracy and a couple of the reviewers said ‘Oh, I would have liked to have watched a whole show of this’ and I think ‘well you might have, but the average person who comes to see me would not like to see that’.
I like to make a point or get something off my chest, or perhaps I’m talking about something that’s been on my mind, but the majority of stuff is just to get laughs.
What makes a good comedy night?
PEOPLE who come to see me are not political activists necessarily, they’re regular folk. If you can make a point to them, in between talking about your struggles with ageing, or discussing your hernia operation or whatever it is, you can toss in something that does give people pause as regards to how men should share the household chores.
It’s not that I feel a responsibility, I think it just feels more satisfying when you’re doing it, and it feels more satisfying when people hear it.
When a joke makes a good point, I think people enjoy it. It’s the difference between having a steak and eating a chocolate bar.
Has your comedy changed at all since you broke through in the mid-1990s?
THERE’S an attitude towards Alanis Morrisette in the opening of one early routine that I’m no longer comfortable with, where I call her a moaning cow and a whiny bint.
Slagging off the lyrics of the song is fine, but there’s a tone in the preamble I wouldn’t write today.
There has been a lot of talk about gender politics recently. What is your view of the matter? I’LL admit that there are things where men get a raw deal. We have higher suicide rates and tend not to do well in divorces, but representation in action movies is not something we have an issue with.
It was Mad Max: Fury Road that kicked it all off, although nobody complained about Ripley in Alien or Sarah Connor in Terminator 2.
Of course, social media means this stuff gets broadcast far and wide in an instant, which emboldens people.
Is it a sensitive subject?
THE problem with men’s rights activists is that it’s not about speaking up for men’s rights, it’s about hating women. If you’re a men’s rights activist, you’re not going to care about the fact that there’s an all-female Ghostbusters remake. That’s nothing to do with men’s rights or female entitlement. That’s everything to do with being, well, a whiny p**s baby.
■ If I’m Honest... runs at the Edinburgh Fringe until August 25 He tours the UK from September 17. Go to edbyrne.com for details.