Comedian Ed Byrne brings his new show If I’m Honest to Blackheath Halls

Comedian Ed Byrne is bringing his new show If I’m Honest to Blackheath Halls on October 20 – covering his sense of responsibility as a father, what it means to be a man in the modern world, and whether he possesses any qualities whatsoever worth passing on to his two sons.

Occasionally accused of whimsy, If I’m Honest is a show with a seriously steely core, taking his natural tendency towards self-deprecation to unexpected extremes.

He said: “I do genuinely annoy myself. But 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.”

But he insists that he’s not self-loathing, saying: “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 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.”

The show also expresses the frustration that arrives in middle age.

Mr Byrne said: “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  move my passport on one occasion.”

But although the show might have mordant and occasionally morbid aspects, it’s also not without its quietly triumphant moments.

He said: “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.”

Age, it seems, has not withered him. Especially now that he’s figured out how to head off ailments before they become a problem.

He said: “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.”

Picture:ED BYRNE credit Rosyln Gaunt