A HOUSEHOLD name is heading to Shanklin Theatre, with 25 years of stand-up under his belt.

Award-winning comedian Ed Byrne has parlayed his on-stage success into a variety of television appearances in recent years.

Now's the chance to see him in his natural habitat, on January 22.

A regular on Mock The Week and The Graham Norton Show, Ed has recently co-presented Dara & Ed’s Big Adventure and its follow-up Dara & Ed’s Road To Mandalay.

He somehow managed not to disgrace himself on Top Gear or while tackling one of The World’s Most Dangerous Roads.

As a semi-professional hill-walker and fully paid-up humanist, he also brought his own brand of warmth and honesty to BBC2’s recent hit The Pilgrimage.

But the Irishman is best-known for his stand-up performances, where his wit, charm and self-deprecatory observational humour is often underpinned by a vitriol and sense of injustice at a world he feels is spinning ever more rapidly out of control.

Ed’s new show If I’m Honest digs ever deeper into a father’s sense of responsibility, what it means to be a man in 2022, and whether he possesses any qualities whatsoever worth passing on to his two sons.

If I’m Honest does have a seriously steely core though, unafraid to touch on gender politics and how men fare when it comes to suicide rates or divorces.

However, he says: "I like to make a point or get something off my chest, or perhaps I’m talking about something that’s been on my mind, but the majority of stuff is just to get laughs.

"People who come to see me are not political activists necessarily, they’re regular folk.

"If you can make a point to them, in between talking about your struggles with ageing, or discussing your hernia operation or whatever it is, you can toss in something that does give people pause as regards to how men should share the household chores.

"It’s not that I feel a responsibility, I think it just feels more satisfying when you’re doing it, and it feels more satisfying when people hear it.

"When a joke makes a good point, I think people enjoy it. It’s the difference between having a steak and eating a chocolate bar."

The new show takes his natural tendency towards self-deprecation to unexpected extremes.

"I do genuinely annoy myself," Ed concedes.

"But the thing of your children being a reflection of you, gives you an opportunity to build something out of the best of yourself only for you to then see flashes of the worst of yourself in them.

"It’s a wake-up call about your own behaviour."

Isle of Wight County Press:

Comedian Ed Byrne, who is coming to Shanklin Theatre. Photo by Idil Sukan.

Since the pandemic hit and live comedy as we know it temporarily ceased, Ed has done a few socially-distanced gigs as well as some on Zoom and he can't wait to get back on the road properly.

It will have been 18 months since he last performed a tour.

“I’ll have to see what still works and what doesn’t. I’ve missed doing stand-up the most during this lockdown."

Tickets available from Shanklin Theatre Box Office.