THE thing about grumpy, grouchy comedians – the likes of Jack Dee, Frankie Boyle and now Romesh Ranganathan – is that theymust be utterly assured they are right and everyone else is wrong, however Irrational this stance might be.

They walk that tightrope at every gig, aware that endless intolerance and negativity can turn boorish if the wit becomes as blunt as wooden teeth and the cynicism turns monotonous, when stretched from television panel show soundbites to two 45-minute sets in the case of Ranganathan.

Irrational is the third solo tour for the Crawley comedian of Sri Lankan descent, and while he is still cocksure, dismissive and waspish, with a dagger to go with his swagger, he now leaves room for some much-needed self-deprecation. Not vulnerability, however, for that would be a sign of weakness, but he displays awareness that just maybe there is a ridiculousness in being so unreasonable.

"I don't know how happy I am," he muses, as Ranganathan mulls over whether he is horrible by nature or a nice person wont to say horrible things. The very fact he is thinking about it would point to the latter, in the tradition of a bark being worse than the bite.

Certainly he is sourly candid, but his comedic skills mean you can tell the difference between his ultimately affectionate stories of his relationship with his wife, children and mother and his stinging dismissals of Donald Trump, The X Factor's desperate obsession with "fame" and people watching people watching TV on Gogglebox.

Ranganathan likes to say things on stage that he "wouldn’t have the guts to say in conversation". York Barbican's Sunday crowd, behaving more in keeping with a Friday or Saturday night, loved him doing so; the more cutting, the merrier they were.