Alan Carr's either the funniest man around or an outdated travesty. Nick Morrison meets the man who splits his audience into two camps.

ACCORDING to Baby Lucas, he had everyone in fits on his last visit to Teesside. Matt H thinks he's the funniest stand-up he's ever seen. For Julie of York he's "a truly excellent comedian", while for Kelly he's "too funny for words", Nats and Em hadn't laughed this much in ages, and Lou says he's "a true genius". Jimmy is more succinct.

"Repulsive", he says.

Alan Carr is a comedian who divides opinion, as this selection of quotes on the Chortle website suggests. Some find his camp delivery unsettling, while others fear it marks a throwback to the days when the only gay men on television were stereotypically limp-wristed.

"I get compared to either Larry Grayson or Frankie Howerd, which can be seen as derogatory and old hat, but I find it flattering.

"For a start, people like to put you in a box and categorise you. It seems all right for lots of comedians to be like Bill Hicks, but not like Larry Grayson. But no-one is in the middle, which is a good thing. Comedy is subjective: there are some people who laugh their head off, and others who can't stand you. I would rather be loved and hated than ignored."

Alan, who appears at the first Catch 22 comedy night along with Geordie Gavin Webster at Stockton's Arc tonight, arrived on the stand-up scene with a bang, winning the new comic award from Manchester magazine City Life in 2001, before taking the BBC New Comedy Award at Edinburgh the following year. But he says he never wanted to be a comedian and only entered the City Life competition after he was persuaded by friends.

"I was working in a call centre and it was the most depressing, soul-destroying place you have ever been in, so I was telling people this and they said I should say this on stage, it is hilarious. I was saying, no it's not, this is my life. My friend entered me for a competition, it was the first time I'd been on stage and when I saw the reaction I thought it was something I could do. If I'd died, I would have gone back to the call centre, where it was safe, " he says.

He's since written for Lily Savage Live and has done warm-up for Jonathan Ross's Friday night show. But, while the latter has proved such a success he's got three more lined up, he knows he's probably going to carry on dividing audiences. Perhaps ironically, his greatest critics seem to be gay men unhappy at what they see as reinforcing stereotypes, although Alan isn't going to get too hung up on it.

"I'm doing it for fun, I'm not trying to prove anything. I wasn't bullied at school, I have a great social life. If people have a problem with it, then maybe they should look at themselves.

I'm only making people laugh - when did comedy get so serious?"

Published: 20/05/2004