Many of you will know Ed Byrne from his appearances on BBC shows such as Mock the Week and Have I Got News For You, where his sardonic take on current affairs marks him out as a sharp-tongued and quick-witted comic. Now he’s touring with a new show, Crowd Pleaser, which I saw at the Anvil in Basingstoke; like his previous live work, it’s another well-constructed evening of smart observational comedy.
The Irishman’s live material tends to be more personal than the kind he does on TV, although here there are some intelligent political references - for instance, to the limits of democracy when your vote is between one thing you didn’t vote for and another thing you didn’t vote for in the UK’s brave new coalition age. Mostly, though, Crowd Pleaser seamlessly carries on from Byrne’s previous tour, Different Class - which was prompted by his newly acquired status of husband - to his even newer one of father.
But thankfully Byrne is too canny to go down the lazy “God aren’t I great for changing a nappy” route - although there is some wonderfully scatological material about his newborn offspring’s impressively explosive bodily fluids - and instead creates a warm-hearted 75 minutes of comedy that weaves his experience as a first-time father into a broader take on 21st-century life and its irritations (“I try to be a people person, but people fucking annoy me”), the real differences between the sexes, why he doesn’t like agnostics and the dubious joys of owning a cat for whom the local wildlife is no match, whatever its size.
Byrne is a self-confessed nerd and pedant who delights in word play. His section on why being asked to finish his drink in a pub at closing time brings on both a strop and a philosophical treatise - “What else am I going to do but finish it?” - is a treat and there are stories, puns, one-liners, audience interaction and neat back references to earlier gags to provide payoffs to some of his jokes.
He also refers back to a couple of the more widely known gags from Different Class and manages to spin new, even better, ones; his original take on age-inappropriate clothing for pre-pubescents, for example, which was inspired by seeing the word “gorgeous” stamped across a young girl’s velour-clad backside, now concerns a tasteless slogan on a boy’s T-shirt. In an extended riff that references cake, attitudes to the overweight, oral sex and, er, cats, Byrne also throws in very good gags about his own laziness and why much of his irritation at those slogans is grammar-based. It’s joke-making of the highest order.
I could have done with a bit more of Byrne’s political material, but this is a superbly crafted show that rushes by.
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