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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Leo Benedictus

Edinburgh festival rapid review: Ed Byrne

Time: 10.20pm

Capacity: Huge. Perhaps a thousand seats, all full.

The theme: Different Class is the name of the show, in which Byrne muses, among other things, on his own position in the class system, wedged somewhere between middle and working. In the standup hierarchy, however, the little Irishman remains a solidly upper-middle story-teller. "I'm that bloke," he says, "famous enough to release a DVD, not big enough for it to sell very well."

High point: There is no escaping Byrne's skill as a performer. At 36, he has been doing this for years, and it shows. Needless to say, he is also very funny. Tales of annoying student posters, a workout DVD, and his recent wedding go down a storm. He also has the technical accomplishment to end, as so few others have managed, on a big laugh. That all these people who came to see him would get their money's worth was never in doubt.

Weak spot: Occasionally Byrne lacks a bit of subtlety. His joke about owning horses, for instance, was funnier before he spelled it out for the slow people at the back. Moreover, whenever he turned to acting out the scenes from his anecdotes, he always seemed just a shade less plausible than when he was telling them straight. And yet the only real quarrel with the show is that it was just a little, dare I say it, middle-of-the-road. There is certainly enough swearing to make it adult material, but Byrne never really stretches our imaginations, or his own, very far. There are worse things to be guilty of, but somehow I was always hoping he might find a way to surprise me a little more.

Audience participation: Negligible. Although after Byrne had finished a section on his sexual exploits, one poor boy chose the wrong moment to go to the toilet and was accused of going for a little manual relief. He was laughed all the way to the exit.

Comic equation: Eddie Izzard x Andrew Maxwell

Mark out of 10: 7

Put this on your poster: Tales of the expected.

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