"EVERYWHERE you look there's a turn trying to sell you a gag," says Justin Moorhouse about his decision to become one of the hundreds of comics trying out a 'pre-tour' act at the famous Edinburgh Festival.

"I don't find it a pressure it's a nice thing to do. Pressure is when you can't afford to buy cheese for your kids," he says of his nerve-jangling first solo, one-hour show which is called Who's The Daddy and set to play Darlington Arts Centre on September 7 and Middlesbrough Theatre on September 26. Having become a Channel 4 face thanks to playing Young Kenny in Phoenix Nights - which led to appearances on shows like 8 Out Of 10 Cats and Does Doug Know - Jason is also an award-winning radio presenter for Manchester's Key 103.

But when it came to his big festival moment he turned to his own children for inspiration. "My show's about being a dad. I've got a boy who is ten and a little girl of two and I've got a long way to go before I get rid of them.

"I'd done a couple of mini-tours where I just did anything but up here it helps to sell the show if you've got something to hang it on. They always say to write about what you know and the biggest part of my life is the kids. I thought 'let's exploit them because they're not bringing the money in'.

"Barney is quite funny. I think kids are brilliant at making up lies and telling stories and fantasising. He's just been on a camp for a week and I said 'what was it like?' and he said 'the sailing was the greatest day of my life' and, of course, he's only ten," he laughs.

Recently Barney rang him up and asked what he thought about gay adoption. Groping for an appropriate response, Justin asked for his son's view: 'Well I think it's a good thing and we should adopt one'.

"He'd got the wrong end of the stick and in his head he thought it was like animals at the zoo, even though we have gay friends, and thought we could take this person to the park and play football."

The comic says of the forthcoming tour: "The jokes are working, the routines are coming and by the time I take it on tour, which is the important thing, it's going to be good for the audiences. It's like boot camp here really... you do it every night and get better." He's found the hour-long Edinburgh slot quite restricting.

"There's all little asides that I've come up with while I've been here that I can't afford to put in because you run over and suddenly you've got an African trumpet band following you. And they're not going to be happy that you're over-running."

HE does like making each show unique so that the audience know it could only have happened that night and it's a little more than watching a stand-up off the TV or DVD.

"I enjoy the shows more when I have a local audience. My comedy is not really Oxbridge heavy or designed for certain groups of people because you do get professional Edinburgh covers who come to the festival every year and want to see someone who will give them an interesting point of view. That's not what I'm about, but there's room for everyone," Justin says.

His own upbringing, as one of four children, also becomes part of the act. He says: "I go to see my mother and although it's just her and my dad now she says 'I can't stop buying a big loaf. We don't need it and I end up throwing three-quarters of a loaf away every other day. Whatever they eat my dad then ends up having chicken chasseur for lunch every day at work."

The stand-up does enjoy the raw honesty of the North-East and was keen not to poke fun at accents but did venture: "They celebrate Catherine Cookson country around there. If I was living around there I wouldn't be mentioning Catherine Cookson, she didn't really paint the region in a good light. She'd write 'Elsie had 15 children by the time she was 17 and she had to eat three of them to survive'. It's all a bit doom and gloom isn't it?"

But on what Darlington and Middlesbrough audiences can expect, he adds: "It's not Chubby Brown, it's me telling stories. And it you're not a dad then everyone has had a dad. Please buy tickets I need to buy shoes for the kids."