RICHARD Herring had, in his own words, been drifting aimlessly and alone for years.

Now, however, the comedian with the Pocklington roots and the life-long burden of supporting York City has settled into married life with a baby daughter at the age of 48.

Is Richard finally Happy Now?, as he asks himself in his 12th solo show, or does responsibility for the lives of others come with its own terrors?

Tonight, on home turf at the York Barbican, he will examines whether we can ever hope to be or are meant to be truly content. If we were never unhappy would happiness have any meaning? Why do our brains force us to envision the worst possible outcomes even on a day when everything seems fine?

Does being happy mean a comedian loses his edge and that true belly laughs only come from depression? How much pressure was there on Happy the dwarf to live up to his name? Is there any system that will guarantee us eternal bliss or should we just embrace the fact that life is a vale of tears and our only option is to laugh in its face?

Questions, questions, so many questions, Richard, so here's another one. Are you essentially happy now? "Well, I've sort of had my moments, and there was a previous show [Oh ****, I'm 40] that went through the ups and downs of hitting 40," he says.

"But now I've got to the point in life where people have the things in life they should have; a family; a bit of security; but I'm always thinking about the possibility of things going wrong, which is a fairly common thing, and that's the purpose of comedy to think about that. When a baby is happy, it's heartbreaking that you know they will gradually find out the world isn't like that."

Richard premiered Happy Now? last September as the finale to the marathon task of performing each of his previous 11 stand-up shows over 11 evenings, spread over six successive Fridays and Saturdays at the Leicester Square Theatre in London. "It was very interesting for me to see my development as a comedian and writer over time, how my comedy had altered, how my life had changed," he says.

"I was quite impressed by the shows I'd been down on at the time and there was hardly anything I was embarrassed by as I watched the DVDs of the past shows. There were a few things I couldn't write now but they were defendable at the time.

"Some of the jokes took on a different impact, where I was able to comment on them, so there were extra jokes and references, and I tried to be as truthful as possible to the old shows, but obviously I'm no longer a 39-year-old single man whose life is falling apart in so many ways."

Richard also found it interesting to go back to old material that "maybe wasn't so good when I first did it but now I could do it better". "So maybe I could do a greatest hits show next year," he ponders.

As he reflects on how his life has changed and the concerns of fatherhood in Happy Now?, Richard says: "I'm now at this balanced point where I can make enough by touring but I don't get hassled when I walk down the street. I'm a better writer now, a better performer now, and that's why people's desire to be successful quickly is a double-edged sword.

"In a way, I think Stewart [former partner in comedy Stewart Lee] and I wished it could have taken longer for us to break through."

He does not concur with the suggestion that having a child can make a comedian go soft. "That idea is wrong. If anything, it makes you harder because you're more philosophical about everything around you. It may initially give you a lovely feeling of the progress of life, but the terror of the world becomes more apparent, knowing you have to keep this baby alive, and yet as much as you want to, you know you can't protect them against certain things," says Richard.

"One of the points of comedy is to make us laugh at the stuff we can't control and that gives us a power over things that we wouldn't otherwise have. If you have a friendly, funny voice you can have a laugh at the world by being allowed to say things you couldn't normally say, and that's a big help. If you can laugh, depression can go away at least for a little while."

Warming to this theme, Richard adds: "Performing comedy and laughing is a release, and you don't have to be depressed to be funny, but ultimately being happy is probably more conducive to being creative."

Richard concludes, however, that happiness is meant only to be fleeting. "If you're happy all the time, you're either deluded or you're in a cult. You need dips, the variety of life; you have to earn that happiness," he says.

"There have been moments in my career where I haven't appreciated making people laugh, or been content with what I do, but overall, I look back and I'm happy that I've been lucky enough to be doing comedy for 25 years."

One final question, Richard: will you be happy come the season's end or will York City be relegated to the Vanarama National League? "I think we're just going to sneak out of trouble," he says, not entirely convincingly. "But it's touch and go this year, whereas last season I was more confident."

Richard Herring: Happy Now?, York Barbican, tonight, 7.30pm. Box office: 0844 854 2757 or yorkbarbican.co.uk