Dave Mark talks to Jason Manford about stand-up, panel shows and being a new dad

A COUPLE of years ago, a pudgy Manc comic and an effete, slightly Oriental-looking man stood in the car park outside a working men’s club in the north-east of England.

They had just faced an audience that was ready to kill. The crowd were expecting a bawdy, particularly blue stand-up, and an hour of bad taste jokes about the mother-in-law.

What they got was Jason Manford and Michael McIntyre.

The two young pretenders brought the house down, transforming the crowd from a drink-chucking mob into a gathering of rough diamonds with tears of laughter rolling down their faces.

The pair wiped the sweat from their brows, mopped the lager from their lapels, and decided they were rather good at this.

“It was one of those moments,” remembers Jason. “We had this sense that if we could get a laugh in that place, where there was something in the air and they were looking for blood, then we must be all right. We might even be quite good.

“Michael had the hard job. He had to go out there and be this posh, middle-class boy, leaping about on stage. But he did what had got him noticed in the first place, and they loved it. I got some good laughs, too. And that was it. We just kind of knew this whole stand-up thing was going to work.”

While McIntyre is now the face of BBC comedy and hosting his own Saturday night comedy vehicle, Manford has been steadily building a reputation as the king of the panel show.

A regular slot on 8 Out Of 10 Cats has been a showcase for his dry, down-to-earth and very Northern wit which, while not edgy, is very, very funny and he is currently captaining a team on new celebrity panel quiz As Seen On TV, alongside Fern Britton.

“We didn’t really have these sorts of shows a few years back,” says Jason. “It’s taken off in recent years and now it’s like a whole genre. You do see the same faces but that’s because they’ve done it once, got big laughs, and been asked to do it again. There’s nothing wrong with sticking with a formula that works.”

But does Jason, who is Liverpool-bound this autumn, ever worry about using his best gags on TV?