The writer and co-star of Frankie Boyle’s Tramadol Nights on Channel 4 is undertaking his debut 40-date nationwide tour. On Sunday, he will play not one, but two shows in The Basement at City Screen, York. Charles Hutchinson learns why Tom Stade has swapped Canada for Scotland

Goodbye Canada, hello Scotland’s capital of comedy, Edinburgh. Why have you made that move, Tom?

“It was a catapult!

“No, what happened was that we ended up in one of those places for the festival that charges £8,000, and the guy that was renting us the house, pretty much a week before my show started, said, ‘Oh, I’m not renting it out any more’, and all we could do was take a six-month lease. And so we packed up and moved out of Dodge.

“Me and my wife used to have this thing of moving on after two years, but you know how it is: sometimes you put your kids in front of your own dreams, and they have their friends here now, so that freewheelin’ lifestyle isn’t happening for me any more.”

Where did your travels take you?

“I was living in Vancouver when I started in this business in ’88, then moved out to Toronto and on to Los Angeles. I ended up signing a deal with CBS, when they were handing out contracts for free, and they gave me – a guy of 24 – way, way too much money.”

What happened?

“You think it’ll last forever but it never does. I wish I’d listened to those damn Buddhists! But with the little money left, I bought a cabin in Ontario.”

What brought you to Britain?

“Craig Campbell [a fellow North American comedian] suggested I should do it. He said, ‘Come over, they’ll really like you’. It was then that I realised my wife had a British passport, as her family – who were Geordies – emigrated to Canada in the Fifties.”

Was Craig Campbell right?

“It turns out I get on way better with the Brits than I do with Canadians.

“Canada got a bit boring. The Canadians aren’t a go-out culture. They’re very cheap; they save up for the next electricity bill or just go to the supermarket to buy beers.

“But you guys have Shakespeare and it’s ingrained in you to go out and do something. Like they do in Los Angeles too, but in LA they’re going out to be seen; in England they’re going out to have a good time ‘because the Germans may bomb us again’!”

What do you like about the British character?

“I like the harshness of it over here. You tell it is how it is. You like being offended. Imagine if you weren’t offended. How dull would that be? But in comedy, it’s nice to have someone to tell ‘you’re not boring as you think you are’, and compared with other cultures, you Brits are very exciting.”

Does being an outsider looking at Britain from the inside give you an advantage in your comedy?

“The fish out of water, you mean? When you’ve lived in a place for so long, you can barely see what’s in front of your face, so the best thing for me is that it’s all new. I can say, ‘oh, look at the way they say that’.

“It’s like seeing the Rocky Mountains for the first time. They’re awesome! But if you’ve been there for 30 years, they’re just blocking your view of something else.”

You don’t give your shows a title or a specific title. How would you define your comedy?

“It’s that thing of recognition, where people say it’s funny because it’s true or that they were thinking that but had never said it aloud. Those are the two types of joke that people enjoy most.”

• Tom Stade plays Hyena Lounge Comedy Club, The Basement, City Screen, York, on Sunday at 4.30pm (tickets still available) and 7.30pm (sold out). Box office: 0871 902 5726, online at picturehouses.co.uk or on the door from 4pm.