I recently interviewed James Kettle for Londonist, which you can read here. It was great fun, and we really got to grips with a lot of stuff.

The trouble is that I have so many questions to ask comedians that I can't whittle it down to less than 2,000 words. So my always-lovely editor Lindsey suggested that the more London-centric questions should go up on Londonist, and the more comedy-obsessive questions could go in my own blog. So think of this as part two of the Londonist interview.

It's a bit of a mish-mash of questions when taken out of context with the main interview, but I hope you enjoy reading it. :)

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Why do you do stand-up? For the public's admiration? Their attention?

An enormous number of the things I've done in my life have been in order to gain the approval of women or immediate members of my family... but I don't think stand-up is one of them. I've always been a big comedy enthusiast, and a writer of stories and poems, and other things that terribly sensitive pale young boys do in their teenage years. It wasn't until that experience at university that I started to think that me actually saying those things could be entertaining. Entertaining, but also unusual. I'm a great believer in the innovative, musically, and in terms of the films I like, and in comedy too. I always looking for something new. I enjoy The Beatles, and watching Monty Python for the thousandth time, but I also go for it a bit of Einstürzende Neubauten and Wil Hodgson too. I like to keep it eclectic.

I suppose I do it because I really like being on stage. I mean, it's all relative because I'm such a miserable bastard. Although it really scares me a lot of the time, I do enjoy getting the response in that way. in a way it's like a sport. you go up there and you've got the bat in your hand, you've got to hit the ball and make people laugh. You're judged... unless you're a big name, you're judged by how you do on the night. And people don't care if you stormed it in Melton Mowbray on the 3rd Sunday in February in 2001, they just think you suck and they'll let you know. And that gives a good adrenalin rush. Oh, and the groupies as well, triple exclamation mark.

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How did your that third gig with the BBC come about?

I did a tape to audition before I'd ever done a gig in my mate's home studio, and after that I did my first ever proper gig at Pear Shaped, which was fun. The next gig was the BBC audition, and then after that it was the show for radio. So... yeah, it was a very fast baptism, but like all of these things, you can do well in a competition early on, and you imagine that you'll always be great, but you do actually need to learn your trade. And you're always learning. Even just as you think you've got it worked out... and I'm sure that people who have been going for ten or twenty years will affirm this. Sometimes I'll go "Yeah, I've just worked out that little bit of technique, I've got that mastered", but then you watch someone who has really been around like Nick Revell or Stewart Lee, and just realise how much of a craft it is. I've talked to Nick Revell about this. He's been going for close to thirty years, and he's a consummate technician, but he'll be the first to admit that he's still learning how to achieve the kind of results that he wants to. Because we all have things that we want to make happen on stage, and we all want to know how to execute that perfectly, just like
Nick Cave is always striving to make the perfect song.

You've done other work with the BBC, tell us about that.

There was 28 Acts in 28 Minutes, which was wicked. It's such a strange environment. We had the world's smallest dressing room. I think the girl's was larger than ours, it was mainly blokes on the show I was on. And it was a real equalling out of peers. There was newer acts like me and Arnab Chanda, up to big hoary old stand-ups like Jeff Green and Stewart Lee. And grand darlings of the theatre, like Martin Jarvis and John Sessions. All of us crammed in! The weirdest bit was when I was sitting around having a drink, and I'd left my notebook on one side. And Martin Jarvis walked over, and in the voice which I completely vividly remember from the Just William stories of my youth, started reading my set aloud to himself. That was one those "I've made it ma!" moments.

I'd definitely like to do more radio. Possibly even TV. Or, y'know, movies. Or whatever new art form they invent. I'm happy to be in LaserSmell. And so do all toher comedians. All comedians are awful, feckless, ass-kissing whores! But that's fine. You have to be realistic about it. We will do anything for fame, adulation, love, and most importantly money. The vast majority of opportunities for comedians are connected to advertising, whether it's doing adverts themselves, or shows which essentially amount to adverts, like E4. I don't think I'm a very E4 act, so I'm happy to slag them off.

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How many gigs have you done?

Umm...

It's at least four, isn't it?

I'd say it's verging in double figures. Oh no, don't print that, they might take it seriously! Actually, i've absolutely no idea. Well, well north of 200. It's been a busy time. But after a while they do start to blur. You go to a gig and you think "I've been here before!" and then you realise that it's just a very similar function room. I do love pubs though, pubs are great. And you get to see so many interesting pubs. I don't nice gastropubby ones, I mean the sort that have old men with pipes and nicotine-stained fingers watching racing on a tiny portable in the corner of the room, with a barman that sucks his teeth when you ask for a lager which he has to change the barrel for. If you go out of London, there are some great gigs like that. There's a relatively new gig in Norwich called The Salt Box. It's a wonderful room with a telly and a surly looking antipodean lady behind the bar, and the room where the comedy is looks like the sort of room where mops and buckets would normally be kept, with just a few rows of seats, but it's a fantastic night. I really enjoyed it.

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You mentioned that you weren't into stand-up much as a kid. Did you like comedy at all?

Oh yeah, I loved comedy. I was obsessed by it. Comedy, Doctor Who and Britpop, in descending order of artistic value. I loved watching Python, Not Only But Also... I used to write to Peter Cook when I was about 11 telling him that he was the most amazing person in my life. And he never responded because he was, y'know, dying of drink. He had other priorities, so I don't think badly of him. But it was a strange thing of a child of that age to be doing. Kids should be out playing football, sniffing glue, and getting your fingers in girl's tops.

So I was obsessed with comedy. I'd spend hours watching Blackadder, Alan Partridge, Fist of Fun... but there was nothing connecting that to stand-up. I always thought of stand-up as being either a bit like Mike Reid, or a bit like someone haranguing you. And I enjoyed Lee and Herring's live show, but I did once watch one of them doing solo stand-up, and it seemed weird to me. Perhaps because I was young and my ego wasn't very well developed, so sitting for an hour watching a single person speaking at you is strange. And I've noticed this when I do uni gigs, that kids can find it quite weird focusing on someone in that kind of way.

So I never got into stand-up. I saw Josie Long do a few gigs at university, and when I moved to London I saw a few shows with my girlfriend at the time who was very into it, but I was never a big stand-up goer. My current girlfriend thinks that I have mild autism, in that I quite like knowing what I'm going to get before I get it. So in Edinburgh I saw Wil Hodgson four times because I think he's a genius, and I love watching the mechanics of it. But the idea of seeing a show with four or five acts where I don't know what they're going to be like, or even knowing their names, was a bit too much of a leap for me.

Is it still?

Umm.. I don't tend to go out to watch much live comedy when I'm not performing. I'll watch someone I know doing an hour long show, but it's harder when you're involved in the process to divorce yourself and be a true punter, because you're aware of technique, of structure and endings. Whether that spoils the experiences or makes it richer I don't know, but I wouldn't rule either out.

It's probably best not to think about it too much!

I think too much about everything. Absolutely everything. I get into the sort of situation where I think "Shall I pick up the phone? I might end up talking for a while... Is he going to ask me how gigs have been going, am I doing a show near him..." it could even be someone I like a lot. I can't be dealing with it. I'd rather sit on the sofa and stare into space. I think I am quite a peculiar person.

It's something that I've become a bit worried about recently, the idea of becoming a comedian means that you end up fucking up your life, and becoming more and more inward looking. All stand-ups are prone to becoming quite introspective... for me, that introspection is quite dangerous, because I'm not a very psychologically strong person. I rely a lot on friends to sustain me. And of course for the love of the general public!

I think that's standard issue for comics though. I think I can think of two people who are genuinely normal, level-headed people.

Carl Donnoly?

...three people.

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Talking about Holly Walsh, you did Edinburgh with her last year. How was that?

Fascinating. You start to seem like a grizzled bassist talking about Woodstock. "Edinburgh is a cruel mistress." It can be really fun, it can be utterly shattering, sometimes in the same week, sometimes in the same day. We did it as a showcase with Caroline Clifford and Caroline Mabey, and the four of us were doing it as an experience to see what an Edinburgh show was like, what it was like to be on stage every day. We were very lucky in that we drew big and appreciative crowds. We had friends who were struggling to get two people in, but fortunately we didn't have that, so that was great. There were times when none of us were speaking to each other, and others when we were all the best of mates, so that was weird.

I learned an enormous amount, though more afterwards. At the time I was so focused on what I was doing, and there's no stimulus to write because you're always performing and there's so many other acts and shows to see, but in the months after I made a lot of interesting choices about what I'm doing. I'm always trying to get better, as is everyone. Peter Kay is always trying to get better. I think he's awful, but I know he's always working to get better. Not better from my point of view, but I doubt he ares much about that. I doubt he's going to be weaving in more references to the the 1980s Birmingham jazz-indie group Felt, which would definitely put him right up my street. But I doubt he'll start saying "Felt - what were they all about?! Remember their Forever Breathes the Lonely Word album? That was crazy!" That'd be interesting to me, but probably not too interesting to other crowds.

If I do Edinburgh this year I won't be doing an hour long show, because I want to do a REALLY good one. So my focus is on making sure that it can live up to the best of what I can do. I'm planning it already but it won't be ready for this summer.