Comedian Ed Byrne is very much an outdoors sort of guy, who enjoys hill walking, mountain climbing and lugging large chain saws to photo shoots - just for the fun of it!

Ed will be bringing his latest show, Spoiler Alert, to Swindon tonight, Thursday, November 23, when for part of the show he will be chatting about his adventures in the mountains of Scotland.

Along with his comedy, Ed writes for the hill walking magazine The Great Outdoors and for his last column he climbed right up into the Cairngorms to see the famous patch of snow which hardly ever melts.

It is on Braeriach, the third-highest mountain in the British Isles and has melted just five times in the last century: 1933, 1959, 1996, 2003 and 2006.

"It is the most persistent patch of snow in Scotland but it melted last week when I climbed up the mountain,'' said Ed. "I went with the man that officially monitors the snow, we properly climbed down in to it. It was difficult to get to, we bicycled, climbed, walked and climbed again.''

The comedian is no stranger to high peaks tackling the Munro in his attempt to climb every mountain in Scotland over 3,000 feet, while appearing on the BBC 2 programme Three Men Go to Scotland. He is game for toughing things out too!

"For TV's Countryfile I was hillwalking and the team leader said we would call it off if the wind went over 40mph. We had a long way to go over two tough days and when we finished I asked him how high the wind had been and he said around 40mph most of the way,'' said Ed.

The new show went down a storm when Ed took it to the Edinburgh Festival this year with sell out shows every night.

"It was the most fun I have had for a long time,'' said Ed. "The Fringe is a good place for streamlining the show before taking it on tour.''

Spoiler Alert is literally about how spoilt we are today, and Ed admits that he is one of the spoilers as he has two young sons.

"I spoil my two small boys rotten,'' he laughed. "In the show I uncover what, as a dad, I am expected to do, and how I feel short changed as my dad wasn't expected to do that for me. There are a lot of real anecdotes.''

Ed has appeared on a number of television shows including Mock The Week, Have I Got New For You, The Graham Norton Show, Live At The Apollo and two shows for BB2 with his close pal Dara O'Briain, the Big Adventure show and Dara and Ed's Road to Mandalay.

"The question is did I do an informative travel documentary for the BBC or did I go on holiday with my best friend? My wife says the latter!,'' said Ed.

But it was not all plain sailing on location as he nearly had his head lopped off by a bamboo cane during a leg rowing race.

"The guy behind grabbed me in time otherwise that could have been very nasty.''

Upon returning to the UK the comic took up a more gentle pursuit tackling the Celebrity Bake Off challenge for Comic Relief.

"My Lemon Merengue Pie won the star technical challenge, but my carrot cake was underdone, as in gooey in the middle,'' said Ed. So the comedian wisely got out of the heat in the kitchen and took over hosting the show.

"It was much easier than being a contestant. I hosted it for Comic Relief and Sports Relief,'' he said.

Tickets to see Ed Byrne with Spoiler Alert at the Wyvern Theatre from 8pm are £27.50 on 01793 524481 or visit www.swindontheatres.co.uk - Flicky Harrison

  • Ed will be back in Swindon on March 6 2018 at the Wyvern Theatre. For more details call 01793 524481 or visit www.swindontheatres.co.uk