LOQUACIOUS Irishman Ed Byrne has so much to say in his Roaring Forties show that he has jettisoned a support act for the latest leg of the tour.

“It was the first gig back the other night but also the first without someone opening the show,” says Ed, before The Press put it to him that the support slot is an unnecessary delay to the main event.

Ed demurred at such a suggestion, coming to the defence of his now departed warm-up guy, one Ben Norris. “In fact I had two tweets saying they’d preferred him, so he had to go,” he jokes.

Anyway, the good news for tonight’s audience at Harrogate Royal Hall is that there will be all the more of Byrne to enjoy as he “embraces middle age with open arms”. “The show has become much longer, so I was having to drop stuff but now, because it’s just me, I can put it all back in,” he says.

Nevertheless, this self-confessed “miserable old git since the age of 23” is surely not giving his forties a joyful hug? “There are irritations that I do discuss, and there’s a section on the reasons why I wouldn’t want to be your friend,” he says.

Such as? “Like when you give someone your name and they don’t give you theirs… though actually it may be a modesty thing, so maybe I’m being mean. Maybe they need help. Maybe I give off an arrogant vibe,” he says, by now tying himself up in knots.

How did he settle on the title Roaring Forties for his latest touring show? “I’ll be honest with you; when you’re writing a show and particularly when you’re being pressurised to announce it, you have to come up with the title and theme before you’ve written it,” says Ed.

“It comes down to whatever you’ve written a few jokes on and so you think, ‘I’m going to say this is the theme of the show’, and if it’s then not the theme, no one really complains.”

In reality, Roaring Forties indirectly emerged from Byrne’s now discontinued Friday column in the Metro newspaper.

“I’d been writing it for a few months but I gave it up because it was too hard. I just found that knowing I had to submit 600 words for Friday, Thursdays became ‘black Thursday’, but it did produce some material for the show. It got the juices flowing,” he says.

“And I still write every two months for The Great Outdoors, a hiking and backpacking magazine. That’s a thing I really enjoy, hiking. I think it comes down to the fact it’s not a team sport and there isn’t really anything to win – and I get some exercise.”

Ed has set himself the challenge of climbing all the Munros peaks – all 282 of them, all higher than 3,000ft – in the Scottish Highlands.

The views must be spectacular, Ed? “If you find the inside of a cloud spectacular! Unfortunately, 3,000 feet is the exact height that a Scottish cloud just sits,” he says.

Where might he wander when he comes to Harrogate? “I hope to go to Brimham Rocks,” he says.

• Ed Byrne, Roaring Forties, Harrogate Royal Hall, tonight, 8pm. Box office: 01423 502116 or harrogatetheatre.co.uk