COMEDIAN Jimmy Carr’s upcoming Funny Business tour, visits the Alhambra Theatre, Dunfermline, on 7th August.

Jimmy is an English stand-up comedian, television host and actor, known for his signature laugh, deadpan delivery, dark humour, and use of edgy one-liners.

He is also a writer, actor and presenter of radio and television and moved to a career in comedy in 2000 and has become a successful comedian. We asked him about his new show.

Funny Business is your eleventh tour show. How have you continued to be so prolific?

There’s no secret, really. A key part of it is the way in which I work. For some comedians, creating a show is very much a case of having a flash of inspiration and then building a show around that one idea. My process isn’t like that at all. For this tour I will have probably written in the region of a thousand jokes, but only use about 250. I think the trick to this job, if there is one, is to be writing constantly. Chuck Close once said, “Inspiration is for amateurs, I just get to work” – I think that’s a great attitude to have.

How do you whittle that original 1000 or so jokes down to the right number for a two hour show?

That’s the audience’s call. If a joke doesn’t get a laugh onstage, then I can’t use it. I think I have a better hit-rate now compared to when I first started, but I still have to test all my jokes at warm-up gigs before I can consider putting them into the tour show. Luckily, I think audiences are quite consistent - if it works in front of thirty people, it will usually work in front of 3000.

Will it be exactly the same show every night?

I like to find a balance between the guaranteed laughs of written stuff and off-the-cuff improvisation. The improv is great because that’s the stuff I’ve not heard - that’s what keeps the tour fresh for me. Asking a comic to improvise a whole show is like asking a magician to do real magic. You’ve got to have a show ready, just in case no one wants to join in. Does Funny Business have a theme?

Yes, the theme is wanting people to like you by telling jokes. Same as every stand-up show I think.

Does that extend to critics?

Just as much as anyone else I suppose. There’s a great quote from Keith Tynan: “A critic is a man who knows the way but can’t drive the car”. That seems pretty accurate to me, but in the end it’s very much a binary thing: either you laugh or you don’t. You can’t please everyone. You often joke about supposedly “taboo” topics onstage. Why is that?

Comedy is all about building up tension and then the release of that pressure. That’s what a laugh is, the pressure valve bursting. Talking about taboo topics is a fast way to build tension and the more tension, the more laughs. I’d also say that one of my favourite sounds in the world is laughter turning into shock. Laughter is instinctive – you don’t make an intellectual decision about what you laugh at, it’s like a reflex. After you’ve laughed, that’s when the moral compass kicks-in and you start to wander “should I be laughing at that?” But by then it’s too late, you already have.

Is there anything you won’t joke about?

It all comes down to intent - there’s no point being made in my shows, I just want to entertain. I do worry that people sometimes aren’t taking things how I want them to, but it’s about context. They’re paying members of a comedy audience, it’s not like I’m just going up to them in the street. Having said that, if you’re going to approach a difficult topic it has to be a funny enough joke to justify bringing it up. The pay-off has to outweigh the risk.

Do you worry that sometimes you will offend people?

Not really. If you believe in free speech, you have to allow people to say things you don’t like – that’s the whole point. If you say someone is “offended”, what you’re really saying is that they’re feelings got hurt. So what? That doesn’t put you in the right. If you’re not laughing, you can just stop listening. That’s absolutely fine.

You came to stand-up comparatively late at the age of 26. Was that a daunting experience?

Not as daunting as getting up at 6am to go to work every day! When I first started out, I just remember having lots of fun to be honest. There was less of an industry back then so it was just about doing stand-up purely for the fun of it, not as any kind of means to an end. I feel incredibly lucky to do what I do. I think that’s the reason I’ve worked so hard over the past ten years or so, the guilt that somehow this isn’t a real job.

Did you always want to be a stand-up?

I didn’t realise it was an option. My dream as a child was to play at Wimbledon. The closest I’ve got so far is watching Andy Murray win it, which I think is probably good enough.

You obviously combine doing stand-up with a lot of TV work these days. Which do you prefer doing?

They’re different experiences. Making television is very much a collaborative process - being the host is a great gig because there’s a whole team of people working to make you look good. Live stand up is very different. You’re on your own, so you take full responsibility if things don’t go to plan and that can obviously be stressful. You’ve got more freedom in a live show though. With TV, even if it’s late night, you’re ultimately a guest in people’s homes. With a live gig, people have paid to be there because they find you funny. That allows you to go further.

How do you feel about being famous?

It’s great, thank you! It makes the world a really friendly place a lot of the time. I think comedy brings a nice kind of fame because you’re well-known but no one puts you on too much of a pedestal. It’s not like being an actor or a singer, where people are so in awe of your talent. Everyone – or nearly everyone - has a sense of humour, so people just tend to come up and tell me jokes. What’s not to like about that?

Have you ever had a bad experience with a fellow celebrity you’ve joked about?

No, people are generally great about it. People I’ve made awful jokes about come up and say hello and are fine with it. I think that’s probably because my material is so obviously just jokes – verbal constructs designed to get a laugh. It’s different for other comics. If Michael McIntyre or John Bishop - not that they would – said something offensive about someone you’d think they really meant it, whereas with me I think it’s pretty obvious I don’t.

Jimmy Carr will be at the Alhambra on Friday 7th August.