LEE Hurst, whose latest tour, Things that Make you go Aaaaaagh, comes to Hereford on January 31, fell into stand-up more by accident than design.

On leaving school he joined BT, thinking he'd be sent off to instal phones for little old ladies who'd give him cake. But it didn't turn out quite like that and he quit, taking on a variety of jobs, from cashier with the Halifax to a market trader selling toiletries.

My mate Alex and I wrote some stuff together when we were at school to amuse ourselves, and when we left school we sold a few gags to TV and radio, but it didn't really seem to be going anywhere.

Then Alex joined a community theatre group in the East End, and when the guy who ran it gave it up, we took it over, and ended up compering by default - I wanted to be a writer and it was never my intention to perform. I didn't have any material to speak of, I just messed about

"We lost the venue in the end as we didn't have a licence .... we didn't even know we needed one.

"Alex went off to do a masters in computing and I went and started doing open spots, but the ambition was always the same, to get my own club and everything was a means to that end.

"I kept stumbling along and the door kept opening for performing, so I did that, writing and doing my own stuff.

"That led on to doing TV warmups, and after he'd done warm-up for one series of Have I Got News For You, Lee was asked to be a guest on the show and said yes, but he'd like to do the warm up as well. The producers repeatedly said they'd get someone else to do it until Lee said, 'Let me do the warm up or I won't do the show.' His reasoning was that if he did the warm up the studio audience would trust him, but if he was simply introduced as Lee Hurst there'd be an element of 'who's he'? As it turned out, when he was introduced, "the crowd went bananas - the audience at home must have wondered what on earth was going on."

Having acquired his club, The Backyard Club, it's given Lee more than he could have anticipated, leading him into a secondary career as a property developer when he sold the site, but delays to the project saw him back on the road - "For me it's just about having fun, I'm not doing it for the money."

Having already covered the man versus woman question and things that make people scared to leave the house, the current tour addresses the things that wind people up. For Lee, it's London cyclists. And it might be best not to get him started on the political state of the nation - he's not impressed with either those in government or those who put them there ....

But there are things he loves. "I really love my athletics," says Lee.

Thinking for another moment, he adds "That song by Pharell Williams - Happy. I love that too."