Very dark prints -

[Tony4597]

...

"PS manages colour then make sure in the printer dialogue colour management turned off" if i set PS to manage colours then my printdialog box is greyed out, so there is nothing to adjust as far as I can se?

So you are using a Mac and it is setting colour management automatically! Long time since I used Mac so not 100% sure:
You are setting Colour Managing to ColorSync. Then in options you are selecting Off No Colour management; or it has been turned off already? This should I think make sure the application (PS) is setting the profile.
I seem to recall there could be issues with Gamma settings printing darker than expected. You may want to look in your printer dialogue manual settings to see if you can adjust Gamma; the default may be set at 2.2 so if you can try it at Gamma 1.8, with the test image.
Also you may wish to look at what happens when you print allowing printer to manage colour

"Double check that you are selecting the correct paper type, glossy, matt etc in the print dialogue and the correct paper profile. If you are sure this is the case what happens if you print on a different paper using its dedicated profile" I choose the paper I use, photo paper glossy - in the old days I would download a file from Pixl that was specific for my "Epson photo glossy" paper, but this type of profile is no longer available as i can tell?

If none of the above makes sense then is really sounding like you are using the wrong or a poor profile which does not describe the attributes of your particular printer type. You cannot download ICC profiles from Pixl, I guess you meant Epson.
In that case I suggest that you should try a paper from another manufacturer that can also supply ICC profile for your printer; some may even offer to make you a profile specific to your printer