MOURN TO BE WILD!

Comedian Ed’s new Tragedy Plus Time show centres on the death of his brother

COMEDIAN Ed Byrne is wondering how wise it was to write a stand-up show about the death of his brother.

But he can’t wait for an Irish audience to hear his memories of Paul, who died of Covid two years ago.

And the former Mock the Week star says of all the shows he’s written in three decades of comedy, Tragedy Plus Time will be the hardest to let go.

Paul, an award-winning comedy director, died at the age of 44 in February 2022 from Covid after health issues with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and liver failure.

HUMOUR

Ed’s title was inspired by a Mark Twain quote that humour is ‘tragedy plus time’ and the 52-year-old says while it’s helped him heal, the show – which he first performed at the Edinburgh Fringe last year – also takes an emotional toll.

“I’m beginning to wonder about the wisdom of it. Have I dragged my grief out? I’m raking over the coals of it five or six nights a week.

“I also know when I stop doing it I will miss it. You’re always sorry to let a show go but this one has a bit more meaning for me, and parting with it will be trickier.”

His brother had worked with comedians including Andrew Maxwell, Sindhu Vee and Roisin Conaty, who were all devastated by his death.

“Paul died in February and that August I went to Edinburgh for a couple of days, to see the stand-ups whose shows he was working on when he died.”

“They’d start off talking about their friend Paul, and at the 40-minute mark reveal he’d died. The audience gasped, but I saw it coming.”

The dad of two, who has previously drawn from real life for his stand-up, describing the tribulations of fatherhood and marriage, is also searingly honest about his relationship with his younger brother.

The pair didn’t speak for almost a year before Paul died, but reconciled when his health deteriorated.

ARGUMENT

“We’d had a blazing row and I also rake over the coals of that argument. We went at it in a way that only two people who have shared a bedroom for 13 years can.

“It wasn’t about anything, it was about everything.

“The show isn’t really about death, it’s about sibling relationships, and that really resonates with people.”

Dubliner Ed says he can’t wait to see what audiences in Ireland make of his uniquely Irish way of dealing with grief, by cracking jokes about it.

“I will be curious to see how it goes in comparison to the UK and Australia because Irish people have a different attitude to death and laughing about it.

“I always like doing the Waterfront in Belfast, and Dublin will be a big deal because my sister is coming for the first time, and when there are people there who knew Paul it puts a different complexion on it.

“My dad saw it in Edinburgh but he didn’t have his hearing aids in.”

Ed has become a panel show, celebrity cooking show and TV quiz veteran, recording Taste of Ireland next month in Dublin.

He appeared over 70 times on BBC comedy show Mock the Week, which was axed by the channel in 2022.

“I wasn’t surprised they got rid of it. I was surprised they didn’t replace it with something similar,” he says. “I liked doing

‘The show isn’t really about death, it’s about sibling relationships’

it because you could find out who the new comedians were.

“They also canned Frankie Boyle’s New World Order and The Mash Report which were doing pretty well, so the only one left is Have I Got News for You.”

MISSING OUT

Ed says while TV viewers are missing out, he’s missing Dara Ó Briain, the Mock the Week host, his best mate and his best man. “We still see each other but we don’t have the professional opportunities to hang out with each other.

“It’s great working with your mates. Now we catch up on tour so I went and saw him in York and we hung out the next day and did an escape room.”

■ Tragedy Plus Time is at the Millennium Forum in Derry on June 20, Belfast’s Waterfront Hall on June 21 and Dublin’s Liberty Hall Theatre on June 22 and 23. See edbyrne.com