Ed Byrne
Pleasance Grand

Ed Byrne, the genial Irish comic returns to the Edinburgh Fringe after a one year gap and has lost none of his charm or mastery. His material is delivered with an assured confident style which if anything is even more polished than before, what he has lost however is an edge. His entrance has to be the most spectacular on this years Fringe through a video of Ed rolling down a hill and then the man himself bursts through a polystyrene wall onto the stage. This is met with spontaneous applause and after the initial shock we settle down for some of the quickest and indeed best observed gags out there.

Loosely based around the Michael Douglas film 'Falling Down', the show is about Byrne's struggles with the mundane events of everyday life, his reactions to them and his solutions to the irritations. Something is missing however and although lively and above all funny, I did feel a little like Ed was going through the motions and not really putting much emotion or effort into this particular show. Where the show did pick up for me was when Ed interacts with the audience and in this respect it felt like he was really earning at least some of his fee. This is still one of the guaranteed great nights out you can have at the Fringe although get there early or risk sitting at the back and missing the full effect of audience interplay and the ad-lib genius of Byrne.

Byrne baby Byrne.