So how hard is it to be a stand-up comedian?
As comedians converge on Edinburgh, Tanya Gold joins them on stage in her comedy debut

It is a common fantasy that anyone with a mouth can be a stand-up comedian. And so, every summer, hundreds of young men – and, if they have peculiar courage, women – head to the Edinburgh Festival hoping to make laughter-millions like Michael McIntyre, the comedy multi-millionaire. I can understand that. I made a joke about ducks in 1994 that thrilled everyone. I could easily be a stand-up comedian. If only I could be bothered.

So when I am asked if I would like to do stand-up for one night, I say, hell yeah, when am I on, baby? In Edinburgh, I’m told. Tonight at 10pm at the Counting House. What to do at such short notice? I telephone Harry Denford at the London Comedy Course because, although I am obviously very funny, I might need a little editing. Harry is a professional stand-up with a very funny act about a fat London geezer who keeps fluffy dice on his light-aircraft’s window.

The training centre is in New Cross and Harry is dressed in white, like a prophet from a religious sect.. I so am certain that I am inherently hilarious that for the first hour I don’t let him speak. I tell him I am afraid of squirrels. He doesn’t think this is funny. I am so badly bitten by mosquitoes, I add, that I’m considering opening a restaurant on my leg. He doesn’t think this is funny either. I say that if you are bored in the supermarket, you should shop in the style of Anton Chekhov: “There is no cheese. There has been no cheese since Father died.” He doesn’t think this is funny either.

Eventually, he makes me stand by the microphone and just talk, without thinking. This reminds me that I have always considered comedy psychoanalysis for people who don’t want to get better. “Tell me about Telegraph readers,” he says: “What are they like?” They like golf. And gardening. And hoes. “Well let’s do chavs,” he says, “Why don’t chavs buy the Telegraph?” I can’t say, I reply, because I don’t use the term “chav”. It is denigrating to the working classes. Harry looks at me as if I am a moron, sitting on my moron’s throne.

Describe yourself, he says; we might get something funny. I describe my feet, then my knees, and so on, up to my head. The only bit I really remember is calling my stomach “a rest home for stretch-marks.” “You’ve left something out,” he says. And I realise he’s right. It’s the voice. I have forgotten my stupid voice, the one that cost my father a quarter of a million pounds. “You have to be a whore,” Harry says, “a comedy whore.” I must mock myself for laughs. So my routine will be about being middle-class and having a stupid voice. I will be the Martin Luther King of Received Pronunciation.

I tell him what middle-class people love – bedding, John Lewis, Radio 4, dentistry, Waitrose. When he thinks something is funny, he makes a note and we go to the computer and write the script. Brevity, he insists, is vital. If I am succinct, he says, he can get me four laughs a page.

I fly to Edinburgh, watching the sweat leak on to my script. At 10pm I am outside the Counting House, talking to Bruce Fummey, who has given me a slot in his one-hour show Nothing In Particular. He is big and jolly, drinking a pint, trying to drum up business. “Just enjoy it,” he says, like a man talking to a burns victim.

Upstairs I sit in the first row, very primly. It’s a typical Edinburgh comedy club – small stage, strange smell. Perhaps 40 people walk in, mostly male, mostly with beards. Bruce begins. He is a big fat Scotsman and his routine is, basically, to suggest that all the other big fat Scotsmen in the audience are gay. They love it. I can’t remember my first line. I keep opening my bag and looking at it. Eventually I write it on my hand. Then I write the rest of my script on my hand.

Twenty minutes later, I am on. I have begged Bruce not to introduce me as a journalist, because I think if he does they will hate me: “And here, for one night only, is Adolf Eichmann, with some jokes about 'chavs’!” He drums up a big ovation and begs them to be kind to me. I wish he wouldn’t; it feels like my mother is introducing me. I go on, looking hostile. I take the microphone from the stand, as instructed, and face the audience. My only comfort is it will be over in four minutes. “Hello,” I scream, like a malfunctioning, middle-class robot, and read the prepared first line from my hand.

“You might have assumptions about me because of the way I look,” I say, gesturing at my large hips. I sense I look mad. I can feel my eyes bulging like traffic lights and my RP is zooming all over the room like a bat trying to get out. “I admit it. Men won’t have sex with me. Girls won’t hang out with me. But I am not ashamed. I will come out and say it now in front of everyone. I’m proud.” I pause for the beat and gesture again at my hips. “I’m middle class!”

They laugh, as Harry said they would. "My dad is a dentist", I add, and they laugh again. I suppose there is something inherently hilarious about dentists, unless you live with one. “My Dad used to come home covered in blood,” I say. “My mother thought he was the Yorkshire Ripper. Except we lived in Surbiton.”

"What", I add, "is the most middle-class thing ever invented? It’s swinging, ladies and gentlemen. In Waitrose. Near the basil.

SOUTH LONDON PRESS ARTICAL