Katherine MacAlister talks to an award-winning comedian who is unafraid to tackle mortal taboo

‘All I have set out to do is go on stage and make people laugh. The only question is will it make for a good night’s entertainment,” Andrew Lawrence tells me matter-of-factly.

Which is all well and good, but when your comedy show is entitled Reasons To Kill Yourself, then boundaries begin to blur. So does he think this is suitable subject matter for a night of stand-up?

“I think everyone has a dark side and a black sense of humour. People also have different boundaries and gallows humour is very common,” he says, grinning hopefully.

Consider his 2006 show was called How to Butcher your Loved Ones, and you’ll see where he’s going with this one. But in this time of trial by social media, isn’t Andrew worried about overstepping the mark and upsetting someone?

“As time goes by we have all experiences of losing someone. I just think death should be a subject for comedy, all you can do is laugh about situations we don’t have any control over,” he shrugs.

“Besides, the rule of comedy is that you can make fun of almost anything as long as you make fun of yourself. So yes, I talk about death as a springboard for changing things in your life when things aren’t going well, about being stuck in a rut and about making hard decisions to change that, and yes, I am aware of a group mentality on social media which is quick to take outrage and be sanctimonious.

“But then there is no objective scale; who’s to say that some rich public school boy in Surrey is happier than someone in a council house or that people with a chauffeur are happier than those in wheelchairs? It’s slightly disrespectful to assume anything.”

As to whether Andrew is speaking from experience, he adds: “A stand-up show is always personal; you provide the material and make the decisions. But there is a limit to how much of my life I want to put up there on stage. “I just feel incredibly lucky that people turn up to my shows, and it’s wonderful to connect with people in that way, to make people laugh and share things with them — which I’ve been doing for 12 years now.”

In other words, he knows what he’s doing. But then comedy has always enthralled this slight chap, who used to sidle into comedy gigs and watch in awe at the sport unfolding around him.

Even when he went to St Andrews University it was comedy to which Andrew was drawn, and it was comedy he went off to pursue afterwards, launching himself onto the stag- and hen-do circuit and gigging at working men’s clubs — an experience which he admits was “character building”.

But instead of folding when things got tough, he stuck it out: “It was brutal,” he admits, “but I reckoned that if I could make it work there I could do anything, because it takes you right out of your comfort zone.”

His university debut led on to the Edinburgh Fringe, where he was runner-up in the 2003 So You Think You’re Funny competition and winner of the Amused Moose Starsearch. Being named the York Comedy Festival New Act of the Year and the BBC’s New Act of the Year in 2004 confirmed him as a real emerging talent on the UK comedy scene.

Since then his career has gone from strength to strength, with regular slots on TV and a healthy touring schedule. “There have been times when I’ve thought about giving up and doing something else, but I make a comfortable living out of it,” the 35-year-old says, “and the TV work is pretty lucrative, although more about being in the right time and place than the sort of comic you are.

“There is a lot of work out there for stand-ups if you want it. You just have to have your foot on the pedal and always be one step ahead.”

With his current tour to finish, the next one premiering at Edinburgh in August, and a new sitcom starting on Radio 4 in Sept, it looks like he’s doing just that.

Andrew Lawrence’s Reasons To Kill Yourself
Mill Arts Centre, Banbury, on January 31 and Cornerstone, Didcot on April 25
Tickets: andrewlawrencecomedy.co.uk