It may sound exciting, but even comedy has a mundane side, acclaimed stand-up Chris Addison tells Nick Morrison.

AFTER seven years on the comedy circuit, Chris Addison has had enough of living out of a suitcase. However far it is, he would always much rather head home after a gig than check in to a hotel.

"After you have done this long enough, you become obsessed with your own bed. You would much rather stay in your own home," he says.

"You have got a life as well. You can't stay on the road forever. Unless you're Bob Dylan. We're even driving back to London from Stockton."

Chris is appearing at the Arc, in Stockton, alongside three other comics, in what is billed as something of a "Best Of" the Edinburgh Fringe. As well as Chris, nominated for this year's Perrier Award, there are triple Perrier nominee Dan Antopolski, Craig Campbell, star of the Sky One show From Wimps to Warriors, and Tony Law, whose show Does Doug Know? airs on Channel Four.

This tour, Edinburgh and Beyond, started earlier this month and goes on until January, and Chris is fitting it in around writing the second series of his Radio Four satire, The Department, as well as a series of comedy lectures, based on his Edinburgh show Civilisation, again for Radio Four.

"In a way it might be better to concentrate on one thing, but there is something good about being able to switch and use different parts of your experience," he says.

"If you're sitting in a room all day writing a radio programme, you could become quite claustrophobic quite quickly. It is good to get out.

"But I prefer whichever one I'm not doing. It's not when I'm performing so much as when I'm driving on a motorway that I know like the back of my hand, and it's the bit where I'm sitting writing but really just staring at the cursor blinking at me."

It sounds as though he's bemoaning his lot, but really it's just that after a while, any job becomes mundane.

"When you start out as a comic, you spend most of your time thinking, 'I can't believe I'm a comic', and just being really pleased it is something you are able to do and you can make a living. But all jobs become jobs in the end," he says.

And the same goes for all the fringe activities that go with being a comedian. When he first went to Edinburgh, he would go round the bars and soak up the buzz. Now he wants to go home and watch telly.

"You are more interested in the work than the experience," he says.

His early shows were typical stand-up: a collection of unrelated gags to showcase what he had written in the previous 12 months. But recent shows have taken a theme and played with it.

"It's partly because it sets parameters: you are not looking at an entirely blank piece of paper to begin with. That is quite nice, although it is harder because you have to stick to the subject.

"I think you should write about what interests you and what you are passionate about. The last four shows I have done have all been subjects that have fascinated me," he says.

This also means he has a fair few props. For Civilisation, he has a backdrop showing a page from the Da Vinci Notebooks, tables with illuminated glass and sundry other paraphernalia. He also wears a suit - not his usual stand-up attire. He says this kind of preparation goes down well with audiences.

"If you shamble on stage and it is just you and a microphone, that can be great if the stuff is good, but I think the audience likes to see you put some effort in.

"But you are still facing the audience: it is not like you are using the props to hide behind," he says.

Despite his success on radio, he says he has no burning ambition to work on television. There are projects he would be interested in, but he's not desperate to be on the box just for the sake of it.

"If you are writing shows for yourself, you have total control. There is always somewhere you can go. But I'm not one of those people who are desperate for fame, and unless the right opportunity presents itself, I don't feel the need to be on television."

He may not want to be famous, but he admits it was the show-off in him that got him into stand-up in the first place. After finishing university, he was looking for something creative to do, and thought comedy would be the easiest option.

"You don't have to do anything apart from turn up. I'm a very lazy man," he admits.

His style has evolved a long way since those early days, and while he doesn't look back on his early shows and cringe, he says that if he were still doing them now he would be worried.

"It is all part of a large process. It can't be rehearsed, it can only be performed, you can only do it in front of people. All your learning and growing up is in front of an audience. That is the terrifying part.

"Most people's first couple of shows are from a standing start. The nature of progress is that as you go along, you are less and less happy with the things that are further away."

* Edinburgh and Beyond is at the Arc, Stockton, tonight. Tel: (01642) 525199.