DAN Clark, star of BBC2’s late-night show How Not To Live Your Life, did theatre and sketch shows before taking the plunge to perform on his own.

“My comedy is mostly tongue in cheek, pointing out things that I’ve observed, but at 21 I would never have been able to write good enough material,” he says, ahead of Sunday’s gig at the Grand Opera House, York.

“Doing sketch shows got me used to standing on stage with people staring at you but you don’t have to look at your audience or talk to them directly, but I can remember being sick to the stomach before my first solo gig.”

Why? “Because it’s the only form of performance where they’re allowed to tell you what they think during the performance. They’d never be allowed to do that in a play; they’d be asked to leave,”

says Dan. “But in a stand-up show, they can shout out and they’re in the right when they do it. With sketch comedy, there’s still a ‘wall’ in between.”

Nevertheless, Dan savours the banter. “I enjoy people contributing, though I’m not talking about aggressive people or drunk people, but there’s nothing worse than a polite crowd. I’d rather have a too rowdy crowd than a too quiet crowd,” he says.

“One of the things that I like about live performance is the those moments that you can’t repeat, where you’re in the moment and you can’t say ‘Cut! Let’s do it again’.”

Comedy songs will be prominent in Sunday’s show. “I’ll have Ben Parker [his regular collaborator and composer from How Not To Live Your Life] with me. He’ll play various instruments and he composes all my music,” says Dan.

“He’s an amazing musician, and the reason I’m doing these songs now is that they started to sound good with all his fantastic harmonies, rather than just me and a guitar.

“There are a lot of stand-ups around, and they’re ubiquitous at the moment, being shown much more on TV, and even myself I’m a 30-something, white, male comedian, but I know how I’m different, and the music is the second half is definitely part of that.”

Dan Clark, Grand Opera House, Sunday, 8pm. Box office: 0844 847 2322 or grandoperahouseyork.org.uk