Circuit Training 87: Swat Teams, Black Holes and Bad Edits, with Ed Byrne

This interview happened a few days before Ed Byrne's now infamous One Show disaster... ok, so there was no One Show disaster, as far as I'm aware but, hey, I said I'd start the intro like that - all will be revealed at the bottom of the page. Perhaps in some comic book-style alternative Bizarro-world Ed did indeed embark on a career-derailing rant, and we're all still writing columns about it amid a slew of BBC resignations.

Anyway, it's intriguing to see such a fine, thoughtful comic guest-hosting such a mainstream show, as he did a few Fridays ago, and enlightening to hear his refreshingly honest take on it during our chat earlier that week. Byrne naturally prefers more outdoorsy, adventurous assignments, but there are clearly benefits to parking yourself on a warm studio sofa, on occasion.

So yes, I missed that One Show gig, but since doing this interview I have seen Ed's tour show, Outside, Looking In (he sold out my local, the Hertford Theatre, months ago), which skilfully marries big laughs and big issues, the political and personal, plus lashings of random anecdotage. And quite a lot of poo. Let's begin there then (the show, not the poo).

Why 'Outside, Looking In', Ed?

It's really about being a comedian, and having that feeling of being an observer rather than a participant when it comes to life. I talk a fair bit about being a comic, horrible corporate gigs, doing interviews: the things I like and don't like about being a comedian. Interviews is a big thing. I have a whole bit about that.

Us talking about you doing material about doing interviews, while we're doing an interview - we could fall into a Black Hole here...

We're about to disappear into a singularity! It's particularly TV or radio, where you've got to be all upbeat - I much prefer doing interviews where they basically just set you up to do a bit of material.

That can be a bit awkward though, when a comic shoehorns something in.

It never works if the interviewer says 'so, do a bit of your act' - there's something about that that just makes whatever you're about to say not funny - 'do that bit that you do.' But I can refer to a bit of material - 'I do this bit in the show where I say this' - and that kind of works.

Presumably those routines often emerge from normal conversations anyway...

Exactly - a lot of these bits start off with you whining to your mate about something. There's also a lot in the show to do with gender, sexual politics, stuff like that. A lot of feedback I've had about the show - one woman called it surprisingly feminist; I'm happy with that. I've reversed my decision on a number of things as I've gotten older. I'm trying to be a bit more socially responsible in my comedy, I guess.

I enjoyed your Central American travelogue with Dara O Briain... er, earlier this year was it?

I think it was shown this year, yeah, recorded last year, and there's talk of another one.

Everyone seemed to enjoy that show. It was a pretty fool-proof formula, sending you two off together...

I hope so. All of the negative comments about it were before it was broadcast, there was a bit of 'ugh, spending our license fee sending these cunts on holiday' - that sort of thing. I saw one negative comment afterwards - some guy said we were America-bashing. Because we talked about the United Fruit Company.

Surely that was more corporation-bashing?

Exactly. Some people are a bit sensitive.

What was the best bit of that trip for you? Sledding down the volcano comes to mind...

That was great, and there was some stuff that never made it into the show. We went paintballing with the San Salvador elite swat team, where Dara was a hostage and I was part of the group that were going in to rescue him. We both made the same joke independently of each other - they were demanding a million dollars for him, and we were like 'you realise he's only on BBC2?'

Crikey - and that didn't make it in?

I think it was felt to be a bit too frivolous, because it was in the same bit where we found a dead guy on the side of the road, who'd just been shot, so they just thought it didn't work.

Editors are the secret power in film and TV - a lot of massive decisions are made in the editing suite.

Well, I appear in TV programmes, I don't make TV programmes, and even though I have experienced first-hand putting my faith in people and having it turn out awful, when it comes to decisions like 'that just didn't work, trust me' - I have to trust their judgement on that.

Mock The Week is quite interesting for that - you often hear of guests nervously watching to see if they made the edit.

Yeah, I do that to a certain... I don't always watch it. I watch it if I've done an actual bit of stand-up material as part of it, so I'll know not to do that bit of stand-up for a while, if it's just been on the telly. Early on, I do remember one time, doing an episode and being very happy with my performance, and then watching the episode and basically not being in the show, and having to say 'this is no good'. Because they don't really care, they don't think of it in these terms.

I can remember shows where certain comics were hardly shown at all.

A lot of the time what'll happen is, you'll have a lot of stuff on a certain subject, and that subject just gets cut. So you'll be sitting there on the panel and do all this stuff about Sarah Palin, loads of laughs, and then the next thing was about Rugby and you think 'well, I don't know anything about Rugby, I've been very funny so far, I'll let these people talk about this' - then the Rugby stuff makes it in and the Sarah Palin stuff doesn't. And then you go 'oh fuck it, I'm not in the show.'

It's a learning experience I suppose - filter yourself evenly throughout.

You need to have something on everything basically. But yeah, there was one time after the show [I said] 'if you're going to cut me out, I'd rather not be on the show' - because it makes you look like you're not funny! 'Well, Ed Byrne didn't say anything this week.' It makes you look like you couldn't think of anything.

At least Mock The Week does have that thing now, the stand-up round, the Wheel of News as they call it, which is really just for the newer people who've come on, to get time on their own to establish themselves.

Do you feel you've nailed TV yourself yet? I get the impression you'd rather do more outdoorsy stuff.

I would like to do something that's a bit more physically adventurous - driving around and looking at stuff is all well and good, and I keep having meetings about stuff to do with hiking and mountaineering and that, which is something I quite fancy.

Although having said that, I was just out dong a thing for Countryfile just after the Fringe ended, and filming on a mountain really does suck the fun out of mountains. I was clinging to a rock face while they repositioned the camera in driving rain and howling wind. And I thought 'I don't know if I do want to do a TV show about mountaineering.'

I was reading a biog on your website about how you originally 'developed your persona' - is it still a 'persona', or is it you?

I think it's become more and more close to me, the person I am on stage. I'm more confident. I sort of made a rule with myself the last 10 years I suppose, that I wouldn't say anything on stage that wasn't true - or I wouldn't pretend to think something on stage that I didn't think, for the sake of getting a laugh. My approach now is very 'what do you think of this subject? What is your opinion on this? Right, now we need to find a way to make that opinion funny.'

Are you more compelled to speak your mind when you get a bit older?

It just gives you something to aim for. If someone says 'draw me a picture, you've got an hour,' your first 10 minutes are thinking about what you're going to draw a picture of. If you think 'what's funny?' - well the whole fucking world is, so what will you write about? The way to cut down on that is go 'just talk about what you actually think of things,' so that way you're not spending time thinking about what to write about, you're just writing.

The pun guys must go round the bend, wandering around, hoping to find something they can reverse-engineer into a joke.

Yeah, the whole pun thing is weird. The Best Jokes of the Fringe, that sort of thing, it's all puns and one-liners; to me the best 'jokes' are nice long routines. All my favourite bits of comedy are things like Larry Miller's five stages of drinking, or Brent Butt's Fabio being hit in the face by a goose on a rollercoaster.

I'd include your one a few years ago about the kid at the airport...

With the t-shirt - that's my favourite of my bits.

If you were a band you'd be playing that on every tour. It must be frustrating for a comic...

To have to retire bits like that, yeah - you can maybe drag them out on an encore, that's about it, that's the only way you're allowed to still use them. I did that one at Cray Cray Cabaret [at the Fringe]; late night shows, you can be forgiven for doing greatest hits. But on tour, people aren't as tolerant about hearing stuff they've heard before.

So what are you up to next?

I've just recorded another episode of Sport Relief Bake Off, I guest-hosted that, for fun. I'm guest-hosting the One Show on Friday - now that Chris Evans isn't doing it they're getting different people to host it every Friday, which must be a pig for Alex Jones, having to babysit new presenters every week.

How does that sit with you, doing mainstream BBC One stuff?

It happens more and more that you'll be in the frame for a show that you really do fancy doing, then you lose out to somebody who's a more familiar face; so to a certain extent it'd be nice to be a more familiar face, so I can get to do the work I really want to do. And if that means having to do certain mainstream shows I wouldn't otherwise be 100 per cent into - I'm a pragmatist. It's important to show that you're willing.

I suppose it adds a different edge to those shows, having you on there?

Well, we will see! We will see. By the time this goes to print, I'll have done it already.

My intro will be 'this interview actually happened before the great One Show disaster...'

Yeah, 'before he went off on that ill-advised rant...'

Ed Byrne's Outside, Looking In tour continues until May 2016 - visit www.edbyrne.com for tickets.