What do your parents/children (delete as applicable) think of your job?        

My son is one years old so he is yet to express an opinion. He blows a raspberry sound but I’m hoping that’s now a comment on my comedy. I have had worse reviews though.

I hope that when he grows up and realised that I did a lot of jokes about him and his birth he sees it as a nice tribute and not just an attempt to make the cost of raising him tax deductible. 

What’s the worst thing about being a comedian?

Sometimes you meet someone who is a little too enthusiastic about trying to make you laugh. It can ruin a social event till you eventually laugh at something they say and they’ll shout, “I made a comedian laugh!” It feels like they’re putting a lot of effort in to prove something to themselves.

I think you are very good at what you do (that’s why I’m asking these questions). What do you think of you?

I think I’m OK, thanks. I put that on my self-assessment form every January but HMRC have yet to tell me they appreciate the joke.

I think I am the right mix of humour, manners, pragmatism and humility. I often think how well the world would run if it were full of people just like me. And then I have to question my humility.

How much do you earn and how much would you like to earn?

I earn the same as I did a few years ago, which given inflation, is starting to be a worry. I’d like to earn enough so that I don’t have to order my online shopping searches from “low to high”.

How important is luck in terms of career success – have you had lucky breaks?

The three pillars of comedy success are talent, hard work and luck, and thank god I’ve had some lucky breaks because those other pillars weren’t getting me anywhere.

The biggest bit of luck I had was years ago. I needed the money and got the chance to film an advert, but it was for a payday loan company. I fought with my morals for a while but the money won me over. Eventually the advert was banned, never aired but I still got paid. So the moral of the story is, always do the ethically dubious.

Alan Davies has said that comedians fall into two categories - golfers and self-harmers. The former just get on with life, the latter are tortured artists. Which are you – or do you think you fit into third category?

I don’t play golf, so I must be a tortured artist. If I didn’t have stand-up as my outlet of emotion and source of approval of others, I don’t know what I’d do. Form healthy friendships?

Who is your favourite person ever and why – not including family or friends or other comedians?

Leonhard Euler. He was a Swiss mathematician, reported to have had an IQ of over 200. There’s a saying that in maths you have to name the discovery after the second person to work it out because the first was probably Euler. That’s how good nerds used to be. These days we just watch a lot of Star Trek.

Do you keep your drawers tidy and if not why not? (please think long and hard about this question, it's to settle an argument with my girlfriend. The future of our relationship could depend on your response).

I keep my drawers and indeed my home studio very tidy. The motivation is simple. I procrastinate a lot and my favourite way of doing that is to do other, pointless jobs instead of the important thing I should do doing. That’s why I have a tidy office and I have watched a lot of YouTube videos on Leonhard Euler.

I actually once bought a book called How to Stop Procrastinating by Steve Scott. I haven’t read it yet.

Steve N Allen’s new stand-up show ‘Alzheimer's? I Can't Even Remember How To Spell It’ is at the Gilded Balloon Teviot – Billiard Room at 9pm from 2nd – 28th August (except 14th). For tickets go to www.edfringe.com