Irish comedian Ed Byrne joined John MacDonald on Newstalk ZB Canterbury Mornings, where he discussed his new show - Tragedy Plus Time.
He explained how he manages to talk about the death of his brother Paul in the show and balance the emotion with humour. Plus his special connection to Kaikoura and Christchurch.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Canterbury Mornings podcast with John McDonald
from News Talks EDB for.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
News Talks it B Canterby Mornings with John McDonald. On
next Wednesday night, Irish comedian Ed Burne is going to
be doing a show at the Isaac Theater, Royal and
christ Church. And I get this. It's a comedy show which,
but believe it or not, talks a lot about grief
and it's with us now going to.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Hid Hey, how you go on?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
I'm pretty well that your show it's called Tragedy plus Time,
which I gather is inspired in part by the death
of your brother Paul. What happened to Paul?
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Yeah? Oh, he died a liver failure. Yeah he I mean,
as I said in the show, his liver failed. But
that seems a little unfair to the liver. It didn't
do it on its own. There was a certain amount
of user error involved in that. Yeah. If it had
been a dishwasher, he definitely violated the warranty on that thing.
Do you know well when he was a comedy writer,
(01:05):
and he was a comedy director, and his thing was
working with stand up comics and helping them to write
one person shows, and his main thing, believe it or not,
was helping people turn a lot of the darker things
from their life and help them turn it into comedy.
And he would absolutely weigh and want me to take
his death and turn it into a one person during
comedy show. So as I say to the audience is
(01:27):
if you don't laugh of this stuff, actually you're the
ones disrespecting the dead. So that's the emotional blackmail I
lay on the audience early doors.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
So basically show, Yeah, so you're doing for you, You
are doing for what you have done for yourself, what
he did for other comedians.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, So it's all come full circle.
And it's funny because I'm kind of a hack as
it is. I'm not the first person to write a
show about this guy. Because I went like he died
in February twenty twenty two and in August of twenty
twenty two, like the Edinburgh Fringe that year, I saw
three different shows that were of his client. They were
(02:07):
all about how their director died, you know, and uh
and tales of him and what he was like and
how he died. So then I went up the following
year with my with my stuff about about my brother dying.
And it was like doing interviews about it, and I'm going, no,
people have done this stuff before. Well, what other people
have talked about their brother dying? No, other people are
talking about my brother died.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I can't believe.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
I'm away behind the curve.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I can't believe. Well, well we're laughing about this and
we're finally just started. I've read that you reckon, it's
you reckon, it's a bit shy you've ever done? Why
is that?
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Well, it's not even my opinion that it's it's this
is this has been the the the what's been decided
by the critics. Not that I should care.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Uh, but I do or argue it doesn't argue with it? Well,
why do people think don't argue with so? Why is
it thought that that's your bit shy? Is that?
Speaker 3 (03:01):
I don't know. I think I think it is. It
is a bit more of a challenge to take something
as serious sort of as grief and death and turn
it into comedy. You know, it's you. Normally I'm doing
stuff about you know, the minute of relationships, you know,
talking about getting married or breaking up with girlfriends, or
talking about raising kids and stuff. Like that that are
(03:22):
more you know, you're more sort of average pray, that's
more kind of grists of my milk. And that's always
guarded me, you know, sort of three four of the
occasional live stare review, you know, but it's usually you know,
it's sort of yeah, it's funny, but that's all it is,
which is I've never had any desire or ambition to
be anything other than funny. But this show, now, it
(03:45):
just seems to resonate with people a lot more. And
I do get a lot of people come up to
me after the show who've maybe lost people, and they
get a lot more out of it than simply a laugh.
It's become quite a I scare, I say, a healing
thing for a lot of people, you know. So it's
like I had a guy come up to me after
(04:05):
the show with the edinburghe who had lost his brother
again year previously, and he said he felt that, having
seen the show with his wife, that his wife now
understood him better than she did before. And his wife
just looked to me and just nodded, So.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
That how did you respond to that? Had you had
you respond to that?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
I just gave the two of them a hug What
else do you what else can you do in that situation.
You know, there's been a lot of that. There's a
lot of hugging people after the show.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Yeah, but I do, I do what I stress.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
It is a funny show. It's not me just down
on the stage punching myself in the crotch. It is
you know, it is a It is a funny show.
It's because that is what genuinely what he would have wanted.
You know, his thing was with his clients was you
can be as honest and as hard felt and as
serious as you like, but there has to be a joke.
It has to be in service of comedy, not just
(04:57):
so you can stand there and share your pain. You know.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
It's not like spending It's not like spending an evening
at the funeral directs. That's what you're saying.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Absolutely not, although you know, balls funeral was pretty funny.
I kind of say he was cremated and he rolled
into that furnace to burn baby burn, just go inferno,
that's uh, you know, which which would be funny for
anyone to do. But our surname is burned. And he
was the youngest in the family, so that works on
a lot of levels.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
How does your family feel about making a shower out
of this? They're not saying, oh, you're being disrespectful of me,
you're getting any any pushback from your family?
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Know they they they So my mother and my older
brother came to see it when I did at the
Edinburgh Fringe, and then the rest of my family all
came to see it when I was just performing in
Dublin there just a few weeks ago. No, it's it's
they they they well, A we as a family, we've
always dealt with things by by being funny. A humor
(05:52):
is the thing that we've always you know, in our
family that we you know, is a way of dealing
with everything. So they understand in that way, but also,
you know, it's it's a way of keeping his memory
alive as well. You know, people are coming to the show,
get know him and go away knowing who Paul Byrne was.
And one of the nicest contiments I've had with people
who did know come to the show and said it
(06:14):
was like getting to spend another hour in his company
is a very sweet thing. So I you know, I
think they understand and they know they they you know,
my family understand how close I was with Paul and
how volatile our relationship could be, and that's and let's
all dealt with. In the show, I go into in
detail a massive row he and I had, which anyone
(06:35):
who's ever had an argument with a sibling would be
will will will understand what I'm talking about when I'm
talking about it on stage. So all things like that,
you know, by my family, I think they, you know,
they understand that this is just how this was inevitable,
that this was how I was going to deal with
what's happened to him.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah, how much of an emotional toll was doing the
show night after night having on you do you think?
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah, that's a good question. I don't think it's very healthy.
I haven't between traveling and I had had a little
I had a week off there at home just before
I came out here to just and you know, hiking
with the kids and stuff. Uh. I haven't done the
show in about a week and a half now, and
(07:22):
I it's it's to really license my mood. Yeah, it's
probably it's probably not really healthy to to keep waking
over the colds of such a painful memory five nights
a week every week. But it's also it has been
it's been nice, but it's been gratifying. And I think
(07:43):
when I do eventually stop doing the show completely, which
I'll have to do eventually, it'll be like another goodbye.
It'll be a weird thing to let go of this show,
you know. It's it's kind of it's mental lot to me.
But no, it's been very it has been very therapeutic.
I remember doing it on his birthday, uh, just just
just recently, and they're actually been quite a nice thing
(08:04):
to do. And I and I remember were doing it
as well. I was in Burnsley on the second anniversary
of his death and doing the show then and thinking beforehand,
I shouldn't have booked the gig tonight. I don't think
I'm going to be able to do it, And then
actually really it ended up being a weirdly emotional one
and the audience really got on side. When I mentioned
that it was the second anniversary. They all started to
(08:26):
clap and I said, peop, don't clap. If the clap
I will cry, you know, And it actually, yeah, it
ended up being just a really nice it's been a
really nice thing. If I'm honestly it's a nice thing
to do. Heavy crowd and I think.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Sorry, heavy crowd, all heavy crid doing the shows at all?
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Oh yeah, I mean when I was first doing it,
it was every night and then and then as I've
gotten used to it, it's sony now and again, and
just sometimes it's different. Bits of the show will just
grab me a certain moment and I'll have to kind
of keep a lid on it. But but but but
by and large, no, I'm able to I'm able to
do it in the more emotionally attached way these these
these days, because people don't really want to pay need
(09:06):
to go and see a comedian crying.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Can I can I ask you a couple of other questions.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Like it's a hard cell but it genuinely is a
funny show. This is a comedy show we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
But they got a lot. Can you tell me? Because
it's not the only thing you cover? What's this thing?
You got this beef about James Cordon? What's going on there?
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Well, yeah, it's just more as I say in the show,
it's not really it's not really him. It's what he represents,
you know, success. The simple fact is James Cordon enjoys
a level of privilege. I would quite like that goes
along with a level of same I'm simply not prepared
to work for. And that's my issue with James Gordon
and I and I explained it about the fact that
(09:46):
it's made me to do with how much my wife
loves tennis and how when we watch Wimbledon together, I
can't watch it with her because you'll there's always be
a shot of the Royal Box, you know, the VIP
area wimbled and there's always some comedians more successful than
me in there, and it's usually.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
James Cordon or Mecantale he'd be they would bec well yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they always pop up in there, right,
and it's it's you know, And then I can just
feel my wife just looking at me, going, well that
you were just a bit funnier.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
So I yeah, it's delightful talking to you. I think
you were.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
You were.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Oh, world's going to change after the Isaac Theater, Royal
and christ Church next wait all the very best day.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Well I do, I do. I'm absolutely looking forward to it.
And it's it's a venue I love playing and I
remember because my wife and I we got engaged in Kaikota,
uh eighteen years ago. And the very and then that
the very next day, that next gig I did was
was was with christ Church Isaac Theater Royal and getting
to tell the audience. I just got engaged. It was
a beautiful moment.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
So man, you shoe, you share your whole member attachment,
you share your whole life with your audience.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Thanks Ed. That's it, okay, I got no imagination. I
got to just tell people what's happened.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Thank you very much. Ed Burned comedian Ed Burned. So
it is in christ Church next Wednesday, Isaac Theatre Royal.
You can bland tickets online at the usual outlets. So
we got a website idburn dot com.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
For more from Category Mornings with John McDonald, listen live
to news talks at be Christchurch from nine am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Canterbury Mornings podcast with John McDonald
from News Talks EDB for.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
News Talks it B Canterby Mornings with John McDonald. On
next Wednesday night, Irish comedian Ed Burne is going to
be doing a show at the Isaac Theater, Royal and
christ Church. And I get this. It's a comedy show which,
but believe it or not, talks a lot about grief
and it's with us now going to.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Hid Hey, how you go on?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
I'm pretty well that your show it's called Tragedy plus Time,
which I gather is inspired in part by the death
of your brother Paul. What happened to Paul?
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Yeah? Oh, he died a liver failure. Yeah he I mean,
as I said in the show, his liver failed. But
that seems a little unfair to the liver. It didn't
do it on its own. There was a certain amount
of user error involved in that. Yeah. If it had
been a dishwasher, he definitely violated the warranty on that thing.
Do you know well when he was a comedy writer,
(01:05):
and he was a comedy director, and his thing was
working with stand up comics and helping them to write
one person shows, and his main thing, believe it or not,
was helping people turn a lot of the darker things
from their life and help them turn it into comedy.
And he would absolutely weigh and want me to take
his death and turn it into a one person during
comedy show. So as I say to the audience is
(01:27):
if you don't laugh of this stuff, actually you're the
ones disrespecting the dead. So that's the emotional blackmail I
lay on the audience early doors.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
So basically show, Yeah, so you're doing for you, You
are doing for what you have done for yourself, what
he did for other comedians.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, So it's all come full circle.
And it's funny because I'm kind of a hack as
it is. I'm not the first person to write a
show about this guy. Because I went like he died
in February twenty twenty two and in August of twenty
twenty two, like the Edinburgh Fringe that year, I saw
three different shows that were of his client. They were
(02:07):
all about how their director died, you know, and uh
and tales of him and what he was like and
how he died. So then I went up the following
year with my with my stuff about about my brother dying.
And it was like doing interviews about it, and I'm going, no,
people have done this stuff before. Well, what other people
have talked about their brother dying? No, other people are
talking about my brother died.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I can't believe.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
I'm away behind the curve.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I can't believe. Well, well we're laughing about this and
we're finally just started. I've read that you reckon, it's
you reckon, it's a bit shy you've ever done? Why
is that?
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Well, it's not even my opinion that it's it's this
is this has been the the the what's been decided
by the critics. Not that I should care.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Uh, but I do or argue it doesn't argue with it? Well,
why do people think don't argue with so? Why is
it thought that that's your bit shy? Is that?
Speaker 3 (03:01):
I don't know. I think I think it is. It
is a bit more of a challenge to take something
as serious sort of as grief and death and turn
it into comedy. You know, it's you. Normally I'm doing
stuff about you know, the minute of relationships, you know,
talking about getting married or breaking up with girlfriends, or
talking about raising kids and stuff. Like that that are
(03:22):
more you know, you're more sort of average pray, that's
more kind of grists of my milk. And that's always
guarded me, you know, sort of three four of the
occasional live stare review, you know, but it's usually you know,
it's sort of yeah, it's funny, but that's all it is,
which is I've never had any desire or ambition to
be anything other than funny. But this show, now, it
(03:45):
just seems to resonate with people a lot more. And
I do get a lot of people come up to
me after the show who've maybe lost people, and they
get a lot more out of it than simply a laugh.
It's become quite a I scare, I say, a healing
thing for a lot of people, you know. So it's
like I had a guy come up to me after
(04:05):
the show with the edinburghe who had lost his brother
again year previously, and he said he felt that, having
seen the show with his wife, that his wife now
understood him better than she did before. And his wife
just looked to me and just nodded, So.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
That how did you respond to that? Had you had
you respond to that?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
I just gave the two of them a hug What
else do you what else can you do in that situation.
You know, there's been a lot of that. There's a
lot of hugging people after the show.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Yeah, but I do, I do what I stress.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
It is a funny show. It's not me just down
on the stage punching myself in the crotch. It is
you know, it is a It is a funny show.
It's because that is what genuinely what he would have wanted.
You know, his thing was with his clients was you
can be as honest and as hard felt and as
serious as you like, but there has to be a joke.
It has to be in service of comedy, not just
(04:57):
so you can stand there and share your pain. You know.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
It's not like spending It's not like spending an evening
at the funeral directs. That's what you're saying.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Absolutely not, although you know, balls funeral was pretty funny.
I kind of say he was cremated and he rolled
into that furnace to burn baby burn, just go inferno,
that's uh, you know, which which would be funny for
anyone to do. But our surname is burned. And he
was the youngest in the family, so that works on
a lot of levels.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
How does your family feel about making a shower out
of this? They're not saying, oh, you're being disrespectful of me,
you're getting any any pushback from your family?
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Know they they they So my mother and my older
brother came to see it when I did at the
Edinburgh Fringe, and then the rest of my family all
came to see it when I was just performing in
Dublin there just a few weeks ago. No, it's it's
they they they well, A we as a family, we've
always dealt with things by by being funny. A humor
(05:52):
is the thing that we've always you know, in our
family that we you know, is a way of dealing
with everything. So they understand in that way, but also,
you know, it's it's a way of keeping his memory
alive as well. You know, people are coming to the show,
get know him and go away knowing who Paul Byrne was.
And one of the nicest contiments I've had with people
who did know come to the show and said it
(06:14):
was like getting to spend another hour in his company
is a very sweet thing. So I you know, I
think they understand and they know they they you know,
my family understand how close I was with Paul and
how volatile our relationship could be, and that's and let's
all dealt with. In the show, I go into in
detail a massive row he and I had, which anyone
(06:35):
who's ever had an argument with a sibling would be
will will will understand what I'm talking about when I'm
talking about it on stage. So all things like that,
you know, by my family, I think they, you know,
they understand that this is just how this was inevitable,
that this was how I was going to deal with
what's happened to him.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah, how much of an emotional toll was doing the
show night after night having on you do you think?
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah, that's a good question. I don't think it's very healthy.
I haven't between traveling and I had had a little
I had a week off there at home just before
I came out here to just and you know, hiking
with the kids and stuff. Uh. I haven't done the
show in about a week and a half now, and
(07:22):
I it's it's to really license my mood. Yeah, it's
probably it's probably not really healthy to to keep waking
over the colds of such a painful memory five nights
a week every week. But it's also it has been
it's been nice, but it's been gratifying. And I think
(07:43):
when I do eventually stop doing the show completely, which
I'll have to do eventually, it'll be like another goodbye.
It'll be a weird thing to let go of this show,
you know. It's it's kind of it's mental lot to me.
But no, it's been very it has been very therapeutic.
I remember doing it on his birthday, uh, just just
just recently, and they're actually been quite a nice thing
(08:04):
to do. And I and I remember were doing it
as well. I was in Burnsley on the second anniversary
of his death and doing the show then and thinking beforehand,
I shouldn't have booked the gig tonight. I don't think
I'm going to be able to do it, And then
actually really it ended up being a weirdly emotional one
and the audience really got on side. When I mentioned
that it was the second anniversary. They all started to
(08:26):
clap and I said, peop, don't clap. If the clap
I will cry, you know, And it actually, yeah, it
ended up being just a really nice it's been a
really nice thing. If I'm honestly it's a nice thing
to do. Heavy crowd and I think.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Sorry, heavy crowd, all heavy crid doing the shows at all?
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Oh yeah, I mean when I was first doing it,
it was every night and then and then as I've
gotten used to it, it's sony now and again, and
just sometimes it's different. Bits of the show will just
grab me a certain moment and I'll have to kind
of keep a lid on it. But but but but
by and large, no, I'm able to I'm able to
do it in the more emotionally attached way these these
these days, because people don't really want to pay need
(09:06):
to go and see a comedian crying.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Can I can I ask you a couple of other questions.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Like it's a hard cell but it genuinely is a
funny show. This is a comedy show we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
But they got a lot. Can you tell me? Because
it's not the only thing you cover? What's this thing?
You got this beef about James Cordon? What's going on there?
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Well, yeah, it's just more as I say in the show,
it's not really it's not really him. It's what he represents,
you know, success. The simple fact is James Cordon enjoys
a level of privilege. I would quite like that goes
along with a level of same I'm simply not prepared
to work for. And that's my issue with James Gordon
and I and I explained it about the fact that
(09:46):
it's made me to do with how much my wife
loves tennis and how when we watch Wimbledon together, I
can't watch it with her because you'll there's always be
a shot of the Royal Box, you know, the VIP
area wimbled and there's always some comedians more successful than
me in there, and it's usually.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
James Cordon or Mecantale he'd be they would bec well yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they always pop up in there, right,
and it's it's you know, And then I can just
feel my wife just looking at me, going, well that
you were just a bit funnier.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
So I yeah, it's delightful talking to you. I think
you were.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
You were.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Oh, world's going to change after the Isaac Theater, Royal
and christ Church next wait all the very best day.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Well I do, I do. I'm absolutely looking forward to it.
And it's it's a venue I love playing and I
remember because my wife and I we got engaged in Kaikota,
uh eighteen years ago. And the very and then that
the very next day, that next gig I did was
was was with christ Church Isaac Theater Royal and getting
to tell the audience. I just got engaged. It was
a beautiful moment.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
So man, you shoe, you share your whole member attachment,
you share your whole life with your audience.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Thanks Ed. That's it, okay, I got no imagination. I
got to just tell people what's happened.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Thank you very much. Ed Burned comedian Ed Burned. So
it is in christ Church next Wednesday, Isaac Theatre Royal.
You can bland tickets online at the usual outlets. So
we got a website idburn dot com.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
For more from Category Mornings with John McDonald, listen live
to news talks at be Christchurch from nine am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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