Jason Byrne sips a glass of red wine. “If the 24-year-old me could see me now,” he says, “he’d be smoking and drinking and going, ‘Ah fuck off, with your jogging and hanging out with your kids.’ I wouldn’t want to know me.”
“I’m with you,” says Ed Byrne. “If I’d been able to see what my Edinburghs would be like in the future, I would’ve partied even harder. But now I would find the 24-year-old me fucking tedious.”
It’s 10.30pm and Jason and Ed have retired to Edinburgh’s Hanging Bat pub. Only half an hour ago, they were finishing their standup routines and taking the applause from their respective sold-out crowds. A post-show drink and debrief is part of the routine for most comics at the fringe, as the adrenaline drains away.
The fringe has been central to how these two have grown up over the past 20 years. Whereas in their youth they might have marched up Arthur’s Seat with a bottle of whisky, today they’re more likely to pack running shoes or a mountain bike. Ed, a keen hiker, is “trying to knock off the Munros” – mountains in Scotland over 914m (3,000ft) high. He sometimes takes with him other comedians of a certain vintage.
Returning to the same streets and the same bars year after year, it’s inevitable they get nostalgic. Ed says: “Coming here in 1995 was one of the best months of my life. I was 23, single, you know.”
“Yeah, it was so exciting,” says Jason. “I was there, Dara Ó Briain was there, you were there, Tommy Tiernan. We’re all the same age, 43. Dylan Moran was a little bit behind us.
“I think comedians were closer-knit then. We’d all go down to Late’n’Live, the only late-night show on. I’m thinking 97, 98. I met Johnny Vegas for the first time, the Mighty Boosh, Michael Smiley. It was a lovely group, like a school year.
“I did Late’n’Live in 95 and Eddie Izzard was there. He shook my hand and said, ‘That was very funny.’ I couldn’t believe it. I went outside and phoned my mate, ‘Eddie Izzard just told me I was very funny!’ There isn’t anywhere like that now, one place where all the comedians go.”
Having both been nominated, Jason and Ed can well remember the late 90s when the Perrier award loomed large over the fringe. How did a nomination feel? “Amazing,” says Jason. “My year, it was me, Adam Hills, Daniel Kitson, Garth Marenghi and, oh, that beautiful man who looks like Jesus, Dan Antopolski. After the winner was announced, all five of us had to go on, one after the other. Garth Marenghi won it. He had to do an extract from his weird play. And it was a fucking disaster! I stormed it, Adam stormed it, Kitson stormed it, Dan stormed it. Then Garth came out at the end and literally everybody went, ‘THAT fucking won?’ So the four of us were very happy because we weren’t beaten by a comic.”
Ed’s memories aren’t so warm: “In those days, if you weren’t nominated, it was all over. I would have years when I sold out every night, got laid constantly, but just because you didn’t get nominated it’s like you’ve somehow failed. The award doesn’t overshadow things as much now and I think that’s good.”
Ed always makes Edinburgh his first port of call when touring a new show. The previous night he was talking to an audience member called Richard, and managed to identify his Fife accent. That fleeting demonstration of local knowledge earned him a round of applause.
We order more drinks. It’s unlikely there were many craft ales and microbrews around in 1995, but this is a changing city. Back in our candlelit corner, the Byrnes explain how the social, collegiate aspect of the fringe is still a huge part of why they come. Ed points out that, at their level of success, comedy can be quite solitary, touring with perhaps a support act and no one else. Edinburgh presents an opportunity to remedy that: Ed is meeting burly Canadian comic Glenn Wool later, and his younger brother, Paul, is a comedy director also at the fringe.
It’s also a chance for them to get some quality time with the family. Being a comic is often seen as corrosive to relationships due to the odd working hours, but both Byrnes say it has its advantages. Ed will later be joined by his wife Claire – a PR he met at the fringe – and his two children. He is thrilled about being able to take them to the many children’s shows on offer. Jason’s wife Brenda is already here with their eight-year-old boy, on their summer holidays; his 15-year-old boy has decided to stay in Ireland with his nan, who will “let him do whatever the fuck he wants”.
In June and July, says Jason, “the kids see quite a lot of me, then by August they’re quite happy for me to fuck off. When I do a British tour [Jason tours his show 20 Years a Clown this autumn], I make sure I’m not away for months on end. I was speaking to the headmaster of their school and he said, ‘I know you’re away a lot, but I see you more than any other male parent, as they’re nine-to-fivers.”
Do their kids find them funny? Is that even important? “Yeah, totally!” says Ed. “My favourite thing was watching Mister Maker, who did some funny thing, and my son said, ‘Mister Maker’s funny. Like me and Daddy.’ I loved it.”
Jason, meanwhile, describes his eldest son veering between pride at his dad’s success and getting reflected kudos from it among his friends, with him saying, “You’re not funny, Dad.” “He’s said that twice now. He’s trying that intimidating thing – he’s a big lad, he’s 6ft, the same height as me. My youngest isn’t sure what I do. I heard him ask a friend recently, ‘What is a comic? I know he does shows, but what exactly does he do?’”
As comics grow old, their fans age with them. In 2011, a wedding party attended one of Jason’s gigs: the bride and groom were such fans, they bought tickets to his show, fitting it in-between their ceremony and dinner, and arriving in all their gear. He says some of his original fans are now bringing their teenage children along.
Ed adds: “I had a couple come up to me after a show and say, ‘We got married when you were getting married. Then two years later we came to see you and he had a hernia, and you were talking about that. Now we’ve just had our second child and you were talking about that.’” There are people growing up with me; they’ve probably been coming to my shows for 20-odd years.”
These days, Ed finds himself consciously redressing some of the “laddishness” of his earlier shows. “When I was younger, I did material that was very ladsy. I even had a line about trying to get laid – something like, ‘Men are trying to get something to happen, women are just letting something happen.’ Now, 13 or 14 years later, I’ve reversed my position, and I’m standing up against the concept of slut-shaming, talking about breastfeeding in public. The key difference is that I’m saying what I think, rather than saying stuff I think will get a laugh.”
“I just run around less,” says Jason as we near midnight and the Byrnes prepare to head off. “I used to be way more manic, then one day I watched a DVD of myself and thought, ‘That’s really fucking irritating.’”
