Russell Kane, Posturing Delivery, Grand Opera House, York, February 14

WHERE does Russell Kane find all that effervescent comic energy for his stage show?

“Lucozade and my mum,” reveals the pipe cleaner-slim Essex comedian. “It’s a killer combination of sugar and genetics. Energy is fundamental to my act – in fact, it’s more important than almost anything else.”

You can see Russell fizzing around the Grand Opera House stage on St Valentine’s Day when he returns to the York theatre for the first time since his Manscaping show there in October 2011.

He believes his unstoppable life force must be innate. “I had instant energy from the moment I was laid out on a towel when I was born. My mum’s life was hell from that moment on,” says Russell, who entered this world, or the Borough of Enfield to be precise, in August 1980.

“As a child, I needed constant stimulation. I wanted answers to everything. On my first day at nursery, when all the other kids were sobbing and holding on to their mums’ legs, I ran away from my mother and didn’t even look back. I had to wait until I was 19 to find out what to do with my energy.”

The answer was to launch into stand-up comedy and see what happened. “I left university and got a very good job at an advertising agency, but it was so full on that I needed a hobby in the evening to divert me,” says Russell.

“I picked stand-up comedy at random. I could have done French or pottery or dance. I’d never been to live comedy in my life. But lo and behold, I was good at it! From the very first gig, something that had been locked inside me for a long time suddenly came out.”

Since then, he has sold out his Edinburgh Fringe shows year after year; released a DVD of his Edinburgh Comedy Award-winning show Smokescreens And Castles in 2011; hosted the BBC3 comedy series Live At The Electric; performed Beyoncé’s Crazy In Love in the final of Let’s Dance For Comic Relief; and co-presented the BBC3 quiz show Unzipped with Radio One presenter Greg James.

Last year, he published his first novel, The Humorist, as well as breaking in his new live show, Posturing Delivery, at the Edinburgh Fringe, and it is this show that he is now touring with its central question of “At what stage is it appropriate for a man to worry about having a baby?”.

“The issue sometimes seems to be exclusively female, but why should it just be for the women?” asks Russell. “Do men have a biological clock? And does it tick in the same way as a woman’s? On stage, I have an imaginary baby called Ivan that grows from nought to 18 in the space of an hour.”

The inspiration for the show came when he had “just split up with a girl”. “I told a friend I was worried that people in my industry never get around to having a family, but she said, ‘You don’t have to worry. You can still be a father at 50’,” recalls Russell.

“But just because it’s biologically possible doesn’t mean it’s the best way. There are loads of things that are biologically possible that people should not do.”

Posturing Delivery will give him freedom to roam at each show. “It has a very tight structure at the beginning and end with a very loose middle. As long as Ivan is born at the start and leaves home at the finish, I can do what I like in the middle. It’s like a good frame with a splodge of paint in the centre.”

Whatever that splodge turns out to be in York on February 14, other matters in Kane’s world are more definite.

Coming next will be the second BBC3 series of Live At the Electric. “The difference this time will be that in every show I will be doing eight minutes of stand-up and a sketch,” says compere Russell. “It’s great to be able to flex my sketch muscle.

“Programmes like Live At The Apollo and Michael McIntyre’s Roadshow are great for stand-up, but they don’t feature sketches and characters. We wanted to make something more nerdy and underground, hosted by the King of the Nerds – me.”

Russell won’t hear a word against nerds. “I think it’s very positive to be geeky,” he asserts. “My background was playing Dungeons And Dragons, and my friends were always those kind of people. Geek chic should be celebrated.”

Meanwhile, the paperback version of The Humorist is out now with its story of a comedy critic who discovers a formula that will allow him to construct the most powerful joke the world has ever known: a joke that has the power to kill.

“There are magical edges to the book, but it’s still grounded in realism. I became fascinated with the idea that there is a perfect chord in music and a perfect circle in art. So I thought, ‘What if there was a perfect joke?’.”

As Kane’s career continues its upward arc, he has unfulfilled ambitions to address. “I’d like to do a live TV show breaking down the week’s news,” he says.

Anything else? “I’d love to do a Shakespeare play. I think I could do a cracking Iago. He would be an evil, menacing Essex Iago! I’d also love to act in a big movie to see if I’m any good. I’d love to be in a film with, say, Richard E Grant playing my uncle.”

Hollywood here he comes? “Why not?” says Russell. “Who wouldn’t want to fly to Hollywood to do a one-liner?”

• Russell Kane, Posturing Delivery, Grand Opera House, York, February 14, 8pm. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or atgtickets.com/york

• Also appearing at Harrogate Theatre, February 15-16. Box Office: 01423 502116.

• Details of Russell Kane’s national tour, Posturing Delivery, can be found at RussellKane.co.uk