IT is not a spoiler alert to reveal that Irish comedian Ed Byrne's latest tour show is called Spoiler Alert.

"I originally intended to call the show I’ll Millennial You In A Minute, but my promoter considered the title 'off-puttingly baffling'," says Ed, whose promoter, let's be honest, had a point.

So, instead, Byrne has been on the road since since September with Spoiler Alert, a show that will keep him busy until June 2. He plays Harrogate Royal Hall tonight, the Grand Opera House, York, on March 21 and Bridlington Spa Pavilion on April 27 as the 45-year-old Dubliner explores the thin line between righteous complaining and brat-like whining and asks, "are we right to be fed up, or are we spoiled?".

Byrne broke in the show in its 60-minute debut at last summer's Edinburgh Fringe, developed it further on his tour dates between September and December, when his 75-minute set was preceded by a support act and now presents the fullest, two-hour version on his 2018 dates, stripped of a support slot.

"I always do it that way, doing the second leg on my own," says Ed. "Bits come in, other bits get booted out on the first leg, and then all those bits that got booted out last year are now back in this year because there's no support act and I now do two sets. It's a better problem to have so much good material to put in than to find, 'oh, the show's not funny enough'!"

York Press:

"I originally intended to call the show I’ll Millennial You In A Minute," says Ed Byrne. Picture: Roslyn Gaunt

Choosing the title Spoiler Alert, Byrne joked that "I did jokingly say that if someone wrote a bad review, no-one would read it because it says 'Spoiler Alert' at the top". In fact the title refers to how Byrne has turned his attention to his belief that today's breed of parents spoil their children rotten, be it the ever-increasing size of garden trampolines or his own children's demand for elderflower cordial.

"My dad wasn’t a bad dad, he was just a 1970s' dad," says Ed. "I’ve already done more parenting then he did in my entire life. But, of course, I made a conscious decision that I was going to be an awesome dad. My wife will come back with tales from her friends of how awful their husbands are and she’ll see me smiling and say, 'all right, stop congratulating yourself just because such and such can’t be left alone with their children for two minutes'."

Spoiler Alert considers the subject of entitlement and how spoilt we are today by comparison with the past, expecting more than we did previously, "but the twin thing in the show is that I'm contributing to that expectation because I have two boys, Cosmo and Magna, who I'm spoiling, so stories about them and my parenting style are prominent," says Ed.

"There's also a lot about comparing my working-class roots [in Swords, Dublin] with the middle-class upbringing of my children. I like to think they're going to get a balanced upbringing, rather than growing up as spoilt brats, so I talk about my own discomfort about just how middle-class they're going to be, like asking for elderflower cordial."

Noting the contrast between his Dublin urban childhood and now settling into rural middle-class life, Byrne has gone from slating 4x4 owners in his comedy routines to driving such a stereotypical country mode of transport. What's more, in the tour poster, he parades two symbols of upward social mobility: a bow tie and a chainsaw.

York Press:

"Where I think we’re not acting spoiled enough is in the political arena," says Ed Byrne in Spoiler Alert. Picture: Roslyn Gaunt

"It’s one of two I own: that one is the smaller of the two," he says, in reference to the saw, not his dandy dress code. "I use it for firewood, both for my wood burning stove and also for the barbecue. The first time I used one I was fine, though I think it worried my parents that I had bought a chainsaw."

In Spoiler Alert, Byrne takes his study of the culture of entitlement into pondering where we could benefit from more of a spoilt attitude. "Where I think we’re not acting spoiled enough is in the political arena," he suggests. "We have a tendency to accept what’s happening and that’s where we should be acting more entitled: we are literally entitled to the government we want. We’re spoiled in all these little ways, but not spoiled enough."

While on the subject of politics, inevitably the nation-splitting EU referendum and serpentine Brexit negotiations draw Byrne's comedic sting, as he draws an analogy with the time one son was determined to touch an electric fence while his father warned him of the dangers. "I was telling the story of the electric fence for a while, and then suddenly it struck me that it was Brexit in microcosm," says Ed.

"I don’t want to alienate half of the population or maybe a third of my audience, but it works as an analogy whichever side you’re on. The Government told you not to do this and that it would be a terrible idea, but you said ‘no, we want to do it anyway’. So now we’re doing it and it’s proving a terrible idea. I do think it’s a fair analogy, but no doubt for some it will come across as me being a typical liberal elite Remoaner."

To emphasise the point, "It's interesting to see how differently the show goes down in different places," says Ed. "Some things resonate more in middle-class areas, others register in working-class cities and towns."

Ed Byrne, Spoiler Alert, Harrogate Royal Hall, tonight; Grand Opera House, York, March 21; Bridlington Spa Pavilion, April 27, all at 8pm. Box office: Harrogate, 01423 502116 or harrogatetheatre.co.uk; York, 0844 871 3024 or atgtickets.com/york; Bridlington, 01262 678258 or bridspa.com