Tales of love and loss in family is achingly funny for Irish funny-man Ed Byrne at Palace Theatre Newark

REVIEW: Who would have thought an evening styled around the loss of a loved one would be so funny?!

Ed Byrne, one of the UK’s favourite TV household names with strings to his bow including QI, Mock The Week, Have I Got News For You, and regular stints appearing on and hosting Live At The Apollo, brought his nationwide tour to Newark on Saturday (September 28).

The tour, Tragedy Plus Time, has Ed explore the more darker side of humour as his set centres around the death of his younger brother Paul, who died aged just 44 in February 2022.

His support act, Amy Matthews, brilliantly got the audience going with her very relatable set around her struggles with mental health, specifically anxiety, which this reviewer understands all too well, and her analysis of 1990s parenting was also very funny — who else used to get excited by dessert, only to be told there’s a yogurt in the fridge?!

Ed then took to the stage with his tales of his younger days with his brother, and had the audience in stitches with his regaling of how an Irish goodbye is not, in fact, indicative of the Irish at all, and this tied in nicely with his brother’s final goodbye — and his possibly most tongue-in-cheek cremation song ever.

After telling the audience he would be revealing his darkest joke towards the end of his set, he built up a familiar picture of brotherly love that the audience both connected with and understood, which made the stories of his brother all the more heartfelt.

Overall, Ed was simply brilliant and his dark humour about death stayed just the right side of appropriate as to not offend the audience, but was incredibly relatable and audiences will absolutely love.

As a side note, after hearing his annoyance that as he has gotten older he has been referred to as “sprightly” in his reviews more so than the “impish” and “high octane” descriptions in his earlier career, this reviewer is more than happy to describe him as having plenty of his typical Irish, impish craic which audiences know and love!

Also, he does get a 5* review, unlike other unnamed newspapers!