View from the Green Room: Comedy = (Tragedy + Time)
Ed Byrne at the Theatre Royal.
Comics think and reflect deeply on their art. On their subject matter. On what makes situations funny.
Byrne explains the premise very well. Most comic situations actually originate in some form of tragedy or misfortune. The TD who loses his seat… the fat man on the banana skin… the lotto winner who loses his fortune… the unfaithful lover that gets dumped.
Mark Twain’s comic formula for “Tragedy + Time = Comedy” is defiantly accurate. Tragic events may not be immediately funny but become comic with the passage of time. I once bought Eircom shares!
Byrne takes it further tonight when he takes us on a journey around his little brother Paul’s death from liver cancer during Covid. He acknowledges Paul’s complicity in his own demise… "to be honest, there was a fair amount of user failure here”, although other factors combined. Including a broken heart.
He’s guessing that Paul – a comedy writer, director and producer – would be happy that his big brother would turn tragedy into comedy.
The gig isn’t solely about Paul’s experience as he wastes away in hospital because it also focuses on the typical angsty brother-brother relationship that led to a 12-month row – that began at a green traffic light that continued with both of them exiting the car onto the pavement! – while Paul’s prognosis only ran to 16 months.
Ed is honest and acknowledges his own pettiness in the row… “I don’t even know what the argument was about now”… as his reflection moves to regret… "hold your loved ones close while you can… being right when someone is hurting means you’re probably wrong”.
It’s at moments like this that you know just how good Ed Byrne is.
I worried about the storyline. In less experienced hands, this could have been a meltdown. But Byrne has thought a lot about it and he knows where he’s going with his material.
The humour is often blacker than black. Paul left his own instructions and wanted Disco Inferno with “Burnin’, burnin, burnin…” blasting out as the casket entered the Crematorium furnace.
He expands on the long “Irish Goodbye” as he describes the boredom of the long hospital wait for someone to pass away. Because dying isn’t easy. For anyone. There’s a high-pitched disbelief, bordering on hysteria, with some of his musings. Like calorie deniers who think calories are a made-up thing or Covid deniers who believe that it was all phooey!
He’s got a YouTuber that has a dedicated channel to those who passed away on this day and he’s screening it on his rear-screen projection. There’s a centenarian who’s popped his clogs at 105 that lists “cause of death: unknown”. His little brother Paul is also listed… along with Ed’s picture!
It’s a raw show and I didn’t see it coming. It’s a show that has many stories… the friction that occurs from sharing a room, death and bereavement, issues that matter and issues that don’t, life’s lessons.
And above all… burying the hatchet before it’s too late.
Loved it.
