FRINGE stalwart, serial innovator and multi award-winning comedian Simon Munnery is off to Edinburgh for a 30th summer, testing out his new show, Standing Still, en route.

Knowing the need to fill his Fringe programme slot with at least some details well in advance of actually arriving in Scotland, Munnery set himself the challenge of creating “an opening to die for, seven wry observations, a tone poem, four fresh skits and two new commandments”.

Contrary to the title, the fledgling show is doing anything but standing still. Instead it is changing all the time, reports the 48-year-old Middlesex comic, who visits the Great Yorkshire Fringe on Friday and Saturday night.

“It’s progressing pretty well. I have a beginning, a middle and an end, three fixed points, and the middle has been completely different each night,” he says.

“They’ve all gone well, though I can’t ever remember what I’ve talked about... my dog... England’s football team... Europe... capitalism... and I’ve really enjoyed the way it’s gone. Apart the beginning and the end, the rest is undecided, but then last year I wrote a load of stuff for Edinburgh and by the end of the run, the show had completely changed.”

Some comedians record their work in progress to shape the show for Edinburgh, but not Munnery.

“I don’t record or listen back. I’m enjoying the unpredictable aspect of it, and there are other reasons to do it this way. I could have a stockpile of material to do but then forget to do, but instead it’s fluid at the moment and that’s good,” he says.

“Recording a show is like looking at yourself in the mirror, playing it back with the audience reaction as the mirror, and the very fact you’re aware you’re recording can affect how you perform, so I’m not in favour of it.”

Munnery’s “opening to die for” is in place with his performance of W B Yeats’s poem The Second Coming.

“There are things you can do visually when performing it and there are things that can lead from it, so it’s going to be as theatrical and chaotic as I can make it,” he says.

“I’ve built a hat with a falcon coming out of it and by moving my head it moves round and round me.”

As for the other elements: “I’m not sure I’m up to seven wry observations yet but by the end of Edinburgh I should have them all in place,” Munnery says. “The Tone Poem is some noises. I think that’s what a tone poem isn’t it; sounds not words; that’s fairly easy to do.

“The skits? I’ve done two and a half so far. The new commandments? No progress yet on this...thou shalt not something...” Stand still, maybe ?

Why is the new Munnery show called Standing Still? "My original idea was that I've been performing at The Stand at Edinburgh for 15 years," he says. "My agent said Standing Still sounded a bit negative, but you can stand still in a world of motion, so now it's that kind of idea.

"It covers a multitude of sins! Keep it vague!"

Simon Munnery: Standing Still, Great Yorkshire Fringe, The Turn Pot, Parliament Street, York, July 15 and 16, 8pm.