Funny old business

“Someone like myself watching TV at home in the Seventies and Eighties, I didn’t see anyone I could personally identify with,” he explains.

“And I’d never been to a comedy club.

Then I went to America, met a lady who said, ‘you’re very funny, I’m going to London and opening a comedy club. I want you to appear.”

That was the Big Fish Comedy Club and, 14 years later, Amos finds himself wearing the “next big thing in the comedy world” label.

His third solo UK tour takes in York, Middlesbrough and Newcastle in coming months on a mighty 73 -date schedule that goes through to the end of February.

He hit the road after spending a month at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, his tenth and possibly his last year at the annual event.

“It’s really quite hard going back every year and striving to come up with something different. It’s quite taxing and I’ve paid my dues,” he says.

On his current tour, The Feelgood Factor, he’s playing mainly new or bigger venues than in the past, reflecting his higher profile.

So does he feel like his career is really taking off? “Without jinxing anything, I will say I keep getting asked to do different things and venues, and the promoter is extremely happy with how the sales are going,” he says.

The stand-up comedy business is crowded but he thinks there’s room for everybody. “It’s been given a new lease of life by shows like Live At The Apollo and panel shows on TV. People can see your stuff whereas a few years ago you had to have your own sitcom or host a show,” says Amos.

“When I started, there were not all these comedy clubs where you could learn how to do it. You did little appearances, pubs or any place you could get them.”

The Big Fish Comedy Club proved the perfect place to start.

The first night it was wonderfully easy because all my friends were there, they laughed in all the right places. Then the second night was woefully awful,” he says.

Amos has had a couple of brushes with royals over the years which his cynical friends reckon is a great marketing tool.

There was an appearance on the Royal Variety Show in which he joked there was a quota system for employing black comedians, prompting Prince Philip afterwards to say to him, “You’re the chap that wants Lenny Henry dead. That can be arranged.”

The following year, Prince Harry made a potentially controversial remark after Amos had performed in the We Are Not Amused show for Prince Charles’ 60th birthday.

“What it illustrated to me is people will say the most outrageous things to you because you’re a comedian,” he says.

He’s hoping in the future to try straight acting roles “so I don’t have to be this comedic fool”. The Edinburgh festival has already provided him with parts in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and Talk Radio. This summer as well as his stand-up show, he appeared on stage in Sheridan’s comedy The School For Scandal, playing Sir Benjamin Backbite.

“If someone had told me ten years ago that I would be working on stage with Lionel Blair I wouldn’t have believed it.

Someone with so much experience and so many stories to tell.”

After our chat, he was flying out to Australia – where he played to an audience of 30,000 on a recent trip – to promote his new DVD, Find The Funny, released here next month.

As well as touring, he has two BBC TV projects in the pipeline – his own comedy show and a Simon Nye penned sitcom.

He’s in the happy position of turning down things, aware of the dangers of being flavour of the month. “You can be in danger of being in all sorts of things in a short space of time and people can be very sick of you very quickly,” he says.

“I’m turning a lot down. I don’t particularly like doing nasty or bitchy, and I didn’t do a couple of panel shows where they have too many comics on the panel.”

■ Stephen K Amos appears at York Grand Opera House on Thursday.

Tickets 0844-8472322. He also tours to Middlesbrough Town Hall on January 22 (01642-729729) and Newcastle Tyne Theatre on January 23 (0844-493-9999).

His debut DVD, Find The Funny, is released on November 23.