Simon Evans is one of the country's most stylish stand-up comedians. And I'm not just talking about his bespoke suits. On stage he has a relaxed, quiet authority that immediately reassures his audience that they are in safe hands. Evans has the kind of elegant, faintly fogeyish precision that suggests that he wishes that he could perform from a high-backed leather armchair with a tumbler of the finest Scotch in his hands. He is particularly good at getting irate about the ills of modern society. Never mind I'm A Celebrity and X Factor, sometimes it seems as if he thinks things have been going downhill since the day Logie Baird invented the telly. Find his latest live dates here.

1. What is the last thing you do before you go onstage?

Often, wake up. I have no very specific routines, but if it’s a big gig I often feel suddenly, inordinately tired and I lie on the floor in my dressing room and sleep. 

2. What irritates you?

People who wander out in front of me when I’m on my bike because they are studying their fucking phone instead of looking where they’re going. Even more so if I’m not even cycling on the pavement.

3. What is the most dangerous thing you have ever done?

See above.

4. What is the most stupid thing you have ever done?

Well, it didn’t have disastrous consequences, but when I came down to breakfast on that fateful morning to be met by friends with the news that Diana had been killed in a Paris underpass, my first question was “Is it on the telly?"

5. What has surprised you the most during your career in comedy? 

The way it has grown so deeply into the mainstream. Comedians are now core figures of the entertainment hierarchy. Even when I started, some fifteen years after Alexi Sayle, it still felt a bit like bandit country. But I suppose it is like premiership football. Cleverer people than comedians, or footballers, work out a way to monetise the stuff. And many comedians have proven themselves as worthy as anyone else of having a platform. 

Interview continues here.